A Letter to My Children

article by Cindy G. Foust

Happy month of May, readers and I hope this finds each of you doing well. It’s a beautiful morning for writing my column… birds are chirping, air is crisp, sun is shining…I’m just waiting for Snow White to walk through my backyard. It’s been a glorious few weeks for me, busy with a friend’s wedding, a wonderful event at ULM, where I work and I’m feeling good. I even went to the grocery store a few days ago and saw two people greet each other in the parking lot with a hug. Yes, you read that right, they actually hugged and laughed and I just stopped and stared. Dare we think that things are finally back to “normal?” I’m loving the no mask, hugging kind of life we seem to be getting back to. It seems to get me all in my maternal feels, which is kind of coincidental that we are in the month that we celebrate mothers, and well, I am a mother. I don’t know if it’s because I am about to go through a different season with my oldest child; my son is getting married in November, and he will be officially leaving the nest. But I have been thinking a lot about what my role as a mother will look like when I have to let him go. Not like moving out letting go, or going off to college, but actually giving him to his beautiful fiancé, whom I adore, to have and to hold from this day forward. It’s like I can’t wrap my mind around him being old enough to be ready for this, he was just in Kindergarten. And then I think about my sweet girl, about to be 17 on Monday and having two years of high school left…and then there’s that next phase for her. And where does that leave me, and Scott? I’m just not sure I’m ready to be an empty nester (insert tearful emoji here).

During the last few weeks when I have been thinking about all of these “things,” my mind of course wanders to motherly thoughts like “are they ready” and “do they know where the milk aisle is in the grocery store?” and “will they wear dirty underwear because they aren’t sure whether to wash the colors with the whites?” Important questions like that have me pondering my parental preparation skills and thinking they might need a boot camp in survival skills sooner than later. But do they really? Because what they might lack in grocery store awareness or laundry sorting, I pray I’ve made up for in showing them how much I love them…like to my core. For all you mothers out there, you know this type of love, right? It’s interesting that I never wanted to have children. No, after we lost my 19-year old sister in a car accident when I was 23, I watched my parents grieve in a way I never wanted to expose myself to. So, I decided that I would marry someone older, have a Volvo and a condo and travel and maybe be a good stepmother. Yes, I had it all planned out. And then Scott stalked me at our 10-year class reunion and I decided to marry someone my own age and, lo and behold, start a family. I’ll never forget that first time Robert Scott kicked me when he was still in my stomach…the fact that I could be part of bringing this beautiful life into being was very overwhelming for me. The minute I laid eyes on him, my entire world shifted and I have spent the last 24 years trying to show him just a fraction of the love I feel for him, just as I have spent the last 17 with Angel Grace. They are never far from my thoughts, at any moment of the day and we have literally raised two people that I enjoy spending all my time (they would probably like less) with.

And as much love as I have for them, I also hope they see the pride I have in even their smallest accomplishments. I don’t post daily on social media or even weekly about the “happenings” in their lives but I relish in spending time with them doing the different things they love…sports, dance, cheer, making coffee foam that looks like a Christmas tree. And while they would probably roll their eyes as I blubber on in this sort of “love letter” to my kids, I think they know that their mother (and father) stand with them every day of their lives as their strongest and loudest advocates. Even when that loud advocacy is part of menopause and I get frustrated over some little nuance, right?

Which leads me to the next thing that I pray they know and that is showing grace. This one takes a little work, even for me as a grown adult, but being able to extend forgiveness and love, especially when someone has hurt you, is a life skill far more important than deciding where the ketchup is in the grocery store. This is something we have to practice our entire lives, and as I always try to be transparent with you readers, I haven’t always been the best at it…definitely not a practice what I preach skill. But what I hope my children see is someone who tries, and as they have experienced pain and heartbreak in their lives, they are able to forgive and move past those feelings.

And in the final leg of this Mother’s Day love letter to my children (I highly recommend this readers, because even though I’m typing it through tears, it is oddly cathartic), I hope they see kindness as one of the most important attributes they can have. I tell them often it takes just as much energy to be kind as it does to be crabby. They have been on the receiving end of someone being kind as well as someone who wasn’t and they both know the feelings they had for both. I wish for them daily experiences where they can demonstrate kindness and make someone feel important or loved through their acts and prayers.

So here I am, at the end of this sort of random, all over the place, blubbering column. Finally, you are probably thinking, but what I would say is that while we are honoring our mothers this month, perhaps we, as the mother coalition, should honor our kids. Write them a love letter…lay it all out there, and reinforce those feelings you show them every day. It’s a blessing to be able to say what’s on my heart, even if it’s through the pages of this magazine and I encourage you to do the same. My children are my greatest achievement, they are truly a gift and I feel blessed and honored every day to be their mother.

Cindy G. Foust is a wife, mom, author and blogger. You can find her blog at the alphabetmom.com for weekly columns about home life,  parenting, small business stories and insight with a smidgen of literacy. Give her a like or follow on Facebook and Instagram.