Happy Seventeenth Birthday Beautiful, Beautiful Emma!
It's the eve before your seventeenth birthday. I am already emotional. I am posting your birthday letter a day early, because tomorrow I have a marathon day and don't want to forget to put this up!
Tonight we drove to the high school together for your final dress rehearsal for "The Slipper and the Rose" which you are in. You looked over at me and the tears began to fall. I simply cannot believe that seventeen years have gone by since the day I met you. From the moment I saw you with a full head of the most beautiful red hair and they laid you on my chest to cuddle with in the labor and delivery room, I knew I was completely in love. You know how I had chosen your name when I was just a little girl. EMMA. (The name of your Great Grandmother AND Great, Great Grandmother. It actually means "grandmother" as well. Funny. And your middle name CAROLINE meaning "a song or melody" equally appropriate.) You have brought music into my life, as have all of your siblings, from a very early age. It has been such a blessing. You truly have the voice of an angel, and I have never seen you find an instrument that you haven't figured out how to play within mere moments. But it's not just music in the terms we typically think of that you have brought into our home, you are a beautiful song, a joyful melody, a soulful spirit. Your music is all encompassing.
Emma, God's children are all special...every single one. Each have unique talents and abilities and beauty to share with the world if they so choose. You, my dear, are remarkable in your talents and abilities to create so much beauty. And you do it with such a raw and open heart. You amaze me. You inspire me. You teach me. Funny...I know. I am an old lady, but you do...you teach me daily by the simply being you.
It has been a tradition in the past for me to list as many things about you that I love as years old you are. With all the painful changes our family has been through over the past five years or so, that tradition has slowly slipped away. I hope I can get myself back into that habit. In the meantime, I will do this. Let me tell you that I love you with all my heart. You are one of the most beautiful women, inside and out, I have EVER had the privilege of knowing! You know that I have had an unusual upbringing and have met many "important" or "impressive" people in the world's standards. Emma, I can honestly say that I do not know, nor have I EVER met, a woman more impressive to me than you. You are remarkable. I am blessed beyond measure to be your mother. I love you and look forward to every single year I get to spend in on this earth in your life! I mean that.
Here are some of my favorite memories of you through the years:
And this, my dear, is the song that I can't hear without thinking of my little red-headed girl who would dance through the house singing it on a regular basis. I LOVE YOU, PEACHES!
Happy Birthday, Beautiful!
Love, love, and more love,
Mama
Tonight we drove to the high school together for your final dress rehearsal for "The Slipper and the Rose" which you are in. You looked over at me and the tears began to fall. I simply cannot believe that seventeen years have gone by since the day I met you. From the moment I saw you with a full head of the most beautiful red hair and they laid you on my chest to cuddle with in the labor and delivery room, I knew I was completely in love. You know how I had chosen your name when I was just a little girl. EMMA. (The name of your Great Grandmother AND Great, Great Grandmother. It actually means "grandmother" as well. Funny. And your middle name CAROLINE meaning "a song or melody" equally appropriate.) You have brought music into my life, as have all of your siblings, from a very early age. It has been such a blessing. You truly have the voice of an angel, and I have never seen you find an instrument that you haven't figured out how to play within mere moments. But it's not just music in the terms we typically think of that you have brought into our home, you are a beautiful song, a joyful melody, a soulful spirit. Your music is all encompassing.
Emma, God's children are all special...every single one. Each have unique talents and abilities and beauty to share with the world if they so choose. You, my dear, are remarkable in your talents and abilities to create so much beauty. And you do it with such a raw and open heart. You amaze me. You inspire me. You teach me. Funny...I know. I am an old lady, but you do...you teach me daily by the simply being you.
It has been a tradition in the past for me to list as many things about you that I love as years old you are. With all the painful changes our family has been through over the past five years or so, that tradition has slowly slipped away. I hope I can get myself back into that habit. In the meantime, I will do this. Let me tell you that I love you with all my heart. You are one of the most beautiful women, inside and out, I have EVER had the privilege of knowing! You know that I have had an unusual upbringing and have met many "important" or "impressive" people in the world's standards. Emma, I can honestly say that I do not know, nor have I EVER met, a woman more impressive to me than you. You are remarkable. I am blessed beyond measure to be your mother. I love you and look forward to every single year I get to spend in on this earth in your life! I mean that.
Here are some of my favorite memories of you through the years:
And this, my dear, is the song that I can't hear without thinking of my little red-headed girl who would dance through the house singing it on a regular basis. I LOVE YOU, PEACHES!
Happy Birthday, Beautiful!
Love, love, and more love,
Mama
