On the Occasion of Mackenzie's Eighth Birthday

Butter,

As Mackenzie and I made our way to school this morning, I reviewed the years from her birth until today. Eight years. A third of your life, an eighth of mine, all of Mackenzie’s. (In ten years, it’ll be half of yours, a quarter of mine, and still all of hers: symmetry!)

I searched my mind for other mothers of your situation.

As we came to the stop sign at Spring Grove and Brookside, I was filled with powerful admiration for you, Grace – for the character you have consistently demonstrated these past eight years. I think I let you know regularly that I’m proud of you, but this morning I felt a deeper happiness than mere parental pride. In a world that sometimes seems to be sliding into chaos – a world where individual selfishness undermines the structure of family – you have stayed the course.

You’ve dealt with poverty, judgmentalism, and exclusion. You’ve dealt with the routine challenges of caring for a young human critter. All along the way, you’ve managed to keep visible to the world that special essence that defines “Grace” – not becoming bitter, or withdrawn, or compromised by mainstream behaviors and groupthink.

It’s in the daily grind that you’ve made your bones. In the long hours, in the drives to and from, in the conflicts within the organization, in the shortcomings of the system. Day after day after day, you show up and strive for excellence. THIS IS WHAT MACKENZIE SEES! It’s the effort and the intent that matter most. Income, prestige, power, title, perks, and the like may or may not be by-products of one’s effort and intent. When Mackenzie says of you, “My Mommy is Customer Service Manager at the Edgefield Bi-Lo”, everything that follows “My Mommy is . . .” matters less than the effort and intent that is brought to bear on what follows. What you are is the life you live, and requires no additional commentary.

I know you can’t carry with you a front-and-center conscious awareness that what you do each moment is important to your child as modeling, but you can take a moment sometimes to accept it. When you are bone-tired, when you are frustrated or disgusted, when the wage doesn’t seem to match the work required, when others who give less get recognition or promotion . . . moments like these exist to remind us that this undertaking is not a sprint. This is especially important for a single mother of limited means.

You are the foundation of Mackenzie’s childhood. Sometimes the load is heavy. But, the grace and style with which you have laid this foundation is a perpetual source of pride and satisfaction for those who love you, and it is my wish that it be likewise for you. There are parents who aren’t constitutionally capable of doing what you do. For them, personal pursuits trump the persistent demands of engaged parenting. Sometimes these folks may seem to have more fun, to enjoy more freedom, to have “more” of what this world offers. I believe all of that is illusion, though. I believe that when they lie in bed, in touch with the realities of their life, they are either filled with regret and embarrassment, or they suffer a pathology of emotion that limits their ability to see another as being as important in the world as they are. It is love that heals the world, Grace, and the healing begins at home, in the relationship between child and parent.

Dad