Remembered

I want my kids to know me.

Not some perfect version of me. And not just the mommy side either.

I want them to know how much I loved books and what a great kisser I thought their dad was. I want them to know that like my mom before me, a favorite thing to do was curl up with a book or a movie and wrap myself into someone else’s story.

I want them to know how much I loved music and crazy, running out into the rain dancing.

I want them to remember seeing me laugh hard. I want them to know I was vulnerable and always the first one to say I was sorry.

I want them to know I meant it when I asked for their forgiveness.

I want them to have felt welcome in the kitchen as well as the den, never excluded from a certain perimeter around me and my daily life. I want them to remember we loved to be together. And that we didn’t have to be doing something special for the moment to have been special.

I want them to know they were enough. Just as they were. That they never needed to perform for us.

I want them to know we worked hard to dig ourselves out of our mistakes and lay a firm rock foundation forward. That their dad was a good man. That he was the kind of man who could make it through a long, day at work fueled by a small boy’s whispered, “I love you, daddy.” That even after 10 years he was still my best friend and the person I enjoyed making laugh the most.

I want them to know I loved words as much as air and would weave them stories plucked out of my own childhood rather than any book come bedtime.

I want them to know we delighted in them. We didn’t just love them – we reveled in being their parents.

I want them to remember how we learned to love what they loved – all their bugs and bears and lists  of animals and super heroes. How we became students of Noah and Micah so that we could cherish their ways.

Above all I want them to know that Jesus used them to mold us, to knock off rough and selfish edges and smooth angry, hard corners.

I want them to know that they were the gift and we rarely knew how good we had it.

I want them to know that all the words I package up here are a forever testament to having been their mother. And while it wasn’t the all of me, it was easily one of the best parts.

The hardest parts. The craziest parts. The deepest parts.

I want them to know I cared what they remembered.