I read the news today and am sad. I wrote this letter for my daughter tonight.
Dear Cameron
As I write this tonight, you are asleep. Cuddled into your duvet, snoring gently and, I hope, dreaming only of things that make your heart smile and your thoughts grin.
Tonight, as I write this, I have a heavy heart. It’s got nothing to do with whether or not we are happy in our home, or how well you are growing up – we have a wonderful life full of laughter and incredible people who love us, and you are growing up so fast and so well, that I cry with pride daily.
It has everything to do with your future.
You see, my angel, the world can be a scary place.Yes, it’s lit with sunshine and full of green trees and galloping ponies but, sometimes, bad things do happen out there. Earthquakes can shake the life right out of our planet, buildings do fall, aeroplanes fall out of the sky and people get ugly with each other. Most of the time, these things make no sense. Primarily, it’s the human beings’ actions that make the least sense of all. The rest, as you know and tell me when you say “it’s a big world and we don’t always get it”, is not up to us at all.
I wish I could keep you safe and out of the way of fear for all your life. I want you to never be scared. But, life, life has other plans. You’re scared of storms and I was too when I was a little girl. Sometimes I still am, but, I’m bigger now and I understand that storms do pass. It makes me feel safer during them to hold on to you too. You have to remember that – storms do pass. And when all the “funder and lightning” has gone, and the rain teemed to a stop, that a beautiful rainbow appears. And it’s then that you stop crying and run around dancing and say “Mommy, look at all that pretty in the sky”.
If there’s one thing I want you to remember, every day of your precious life, it’s that our hope and our faith, in ourselves more than anything, must stay alive. Sure, it will ebb and flow and duck and weave, but never, ever let it die. Do whatever you have to, to keep it alive – dance like a mad person, sing really loudly, talk until your throat hurts or write until your hand refuses to carry on. Above all things, love everyone and every day like they have just arrived.
Storms will come, and horrible things will happen but, we will and we can, keep going. If we believe and act on our strongest faith that there will once again, be “all that pretty”, then, I promise you this, our rainbow will come.