242 Days

242 Days until departure 

It has been a minute. An entire month has passed by and I haven’t written. This is not due to you not being remarkable but rather due to just being so darn busy. Highlights of the last month, you finished applying to all your colleges, including the supplemental essays and portfolios. You have picked 5 colleges total and I think you would be pleased to attend any of them. You have already heard from one, who accepted you and offered a merit based scholarship, so at the end of the day you know there is at least one place for you to go, if you continue to want to go to college. 

You and your sibling have taken an interest in helping me with the new families that I am supporting at the shelter and I cannot even express without tears how freaking proud this makes me. To see you comforting a child and speaking Spanish, to see you engaging with all sorts of people no matter their background, to see you and your sibling arranging your schedule so you can do more volunteering is truly more than I can ask for… you keep exemplifying our belief that “service is our prayer,” and I truly could not ask for more. 

The other day the Pepères declared this the year of you. Though I am not willing to let go of you, I am starting to come around to the idea that there is a lot of good instore for both of us in the coming year. My darling, darling child, may this year be one filled with health and filled with happiness. May you be exactly where you are supposed to be in the fall and may you find new members of your tribe that are as good as the people who are already there. May you never doubt that you come from love and may you continue to spread love to everyone you know. 

Happy New Year!

273 Days

273 Days till departure

It has taken me some time to get back to reality after the close of the play. The universe always provides though and today I got a smack of reality when I opened an email from the school and saw this message: “Dear Parents and Students of Class of 2024 of Sharon High School Graduation is around the corner and we're excited! Below is a link to Build-a-Grad where you can order your official recommended attire for graduation. Cap, gown, and tassel are all necessary items for procession. Please place your order ASAP to assure a timely delivery.” 

 

Now that I am back to reality let me say that GRADUATION IS NOT AROUND THE CORNER. Stop speeding up my timeline, stop interfering with my dream state where we all get to live together happily forever. I know it is coming but just like we can’t have Thanksgiving before Halloween, we should not have to book graduation items until we at least get to semester two, or get into college, or have the calendar flip to the actual graduation year.

283 Days

283 Days till departure

We just wrapped Anastasia. You were truly sublime in the show and it was my deepest pleasure to be able to share this experience with you. So many people talked about you going on from high school to do performance on a professional level, and they were all surprised when I shared that you have not expressed a desire to continue. 

One of the things that I admire most about you is that you have always known your own mind and you have never wavered from following your own path. Whether you never perform again or you go on to a life filled with performance, we will always have this weekend, and I will cherish this experience for the rest of my life.

288 Days

288 Days till departure.

I haven’t been able to write a lot because we are just so darn busy. In three days, it will be opening night for Anastasia, in which you play Anastasia. People probably do not know this but when you saw it on the Broadway tour you said, I am going to play that part someday. For your 13th birthday we let you do a master class with Christy Altomare, the original Broadway Anastasia, and you were the first kid in the class to perform for her. You told me afterwards that maybe you weren’t going to be able to play Anastasia because you weren’t the best singer. 

Another thing people may not know is that when you were 10 you had a life saving surgery. At the time we were asked if we wanted to donate the tissue from your surgery to science, and we said yes. Today, you received a letter from Boston Children’s Hospital asking you for permission to keep your sample, now that you were 18. You were funny, you asked me what they would do with it and if there was any way you could be the next Henrietta Lacks. 

I love that you know who Henrietta Lacks is, I love that you get to play a role you dreamed about when you were a kid, I love that you got all A’s on your report card and still thought there was room for improvement, I love that you say, I love you to your parents and your sister and your friends, honestly, I just love you!

292 Days

292 Days till departure

Well, it happened, you turned 18.

293 Days

293 Days till departure.

Tomorrow is your birthday. It is the day that you legally become an adult. This time 18 years ago, I knew I was going into the hospital to have you. I couldn’t feel you moving and went to my doctor’s office. She sent me home saying that everything was fine but she would see me at 7 am for an induction. 

Your father and I came home and ordered Chinese food; I wonder if that has anything to do with why you like it so much. I stayed home to call everyone and tell them that you were coming tomorrow. While I was making phone calls, dad went to get the food, and on his way back a new driver rear-ended him. It was no big deal and everyone was fine, but I was so upset. I remember thinking how terrible the person was that would hit someone who was about to have a baby. Tonight, I am thinking that young driver was probably you or your sibling’s age and how much my perspective has shifted about who really had it worse in that fender bender. 

I remember not being able to sleep. I was scared that something was wrong because you were not moving nearly as much, I was scared that everything between your dad and I would change and we wouldn’t be us anymore, and I was really scared that I might not love you. We had such a tough time together during pregnancy and I didn’t trust my capacity to love my family, my friends, your dad, and still have room in my heart left to give to you. 

Looking back on that night 18 years ago, there are so many thoughts, but the main one is how silly I was to think that I ever had to worry about loving you. You who showed me how to love unconditionally, you who taught me there is good in everyone, and you who remind me every day that the purpose to all our lives is to love.

294 Days

294 Days till departure

I post each of these entries on social media and I think am careful about not revealing or sharing too many details about you or your sibling. I want to protect your anonymity in case you never want to be associated with this document, and given that many people that you see in your daily life read this, I try to be careful about sharing the more personal details. 

This week we have been leading up to your 18th birthday. Each day I have been going over the timeline 18 years ago and thinking about where I was and what I was doing.  For example, your initial due date came and went already. 18 years ago after your due date passed, I did everything in my power to try and induce labor on my own. Bumpy car rides, excessive walking, drinking castor oil, eating pineapples, intercourse (sorry but it is true), but nothing seemed to work. On this day 18 years ago, I went to the hospital for a check-up because at that point my Braxton Hicks contractions were intense and they told me that nature would take its course any minute, They assured me if it didn’t they would not let me go past the 10th and we made an appointment at that time for a planned induction. Obviously given your birthday you know how that went. 

If you had asked me 18 years ago, what I would think about today, I would have said back then that we would never get to today because you were never going to be born. I also might have said I will be lucky if this kid gets to 18 because it (I actually called you it, because I didn’t know your gender) has been trying to kill me this whole pregnancy and I am not sure either of us is going to make it. In my wildest dreams when I pictured 18 years into the future, I never would have predicted the thing that happened today. But because truth is stranger than fiction and today happened.