Sending a Message in a Bottle

When I started blogging many, many years ago, I had two motives: one, to provide a means for my parents to connect with the daily lives of the grandchildren from whom they were separated, geographically, and, two, to create a time capsule of sorts; something that I could read back over to remind me of the fleeting time when the children were small.

Because I  was all too aware of the brief nature of childhood, I wanted a record; a written account of every lost tooth, scraped knee, Christmas morning, first day of school, and ballet recital. It wasn't enough for me to log those firsts in baby books, or to scrap them onto album pages; I needed a space for a more detailed account of our life, and, I found that in blogging.

This space has served my intended purposes quite well; my parents have maintained a close relationship with my children despite the distance that separates them and I have ample material to read back over when my memories inevitably become fuzzy around the edges. But it has had an unexpected benefit as well, it has provided The Teenager with a way to stay connected to the home and family that she desperately misses during this first (and most difficult) year of college.

I love that I have this platform to reach my baby. I love that she reads this and that, by doing so, she will know how much we miss her and how incomplete our home is without her in it. I love that she can watch her brother navigate the last three years of High School through the stories that I share in this space, and I hope that it goes a long way to make her feel included in her brother's life, because she misses him, she really does. And, I hope that, some day, the Cub will also seek out this space, to remind him of home when he is far away, to reconnect him to the sister he also misses terribly, or to reassure himself that he is, and always has been, loved.

I have always written about my children; it never occurred to me that I was writing for my children. But, that has now become my favorite reason for writing.

It is my dearest hope that they will read our story and that they will garner a fraction of how very loved and cherished they were (and are). Because, I could write a novel on the topic, but, I love them far beyond what mere words on a page can convey.