Gotcha Day 2012: I Hope You Love Well

There is something magnificent about 6:45AM, even on a Saturday morning.  It is quiet.  And this morning I am in the quiet, with the espresso brewing, dawn is breaking with a gentle light in the sky and big clouds are moving across the horizon because it is supposed to rain in Houston today.  This particular day I am reflecting on the two most important guys in my life who are sleeping upstairs.  You see, 12 years ago this weekend Dave and I were preparing to welcome Nate home.  I recently reflected on this marker moment a couple of posts ago (Walks With Nate).  I told my close girlfriends at lunch yesterday - "We are so blessed.  Nate is such a great kid, such an amazing human being."  And it's true.

So this is my letter to Nate on the occassion of his 12th Gotcha Day, who might someday decide to read this with fresh eyes, long after he's left my home and gone on to live life independently (sigh).  This blog, in so many ways already, has been my history for him.

Dear Nate,

Watching you dip your toes into the Pacific this summer

I am not sure you will ever fully understand how much my heart longed for you - even before I saw your face, or knew your personality or heard your cry for the first time.  No little boy could have been prayed for as much as you were prayed for - long before we knew who you were and when you were coming into our family.  But, I will never, ever forget the day your Auntie Sue placed you in my arms.  Never.  It was one of the best days of mine and Dad's life together.

You have been a gift far greater than I could have ever imagined when I was dreaming of being a mother.  You have always had this demeanor of quiet strength - and you needed it for all the time you spent in the hospital in those early days.  I love that you remind me of your dad's gracious, kind and mellow personality.  You are so much like him in that way.  And, like your dad, you smile at my passionate, fierce, push-hard ways.  You even laugh.  I love that you and I can laugh about what a quirky mom I can be - so different from you and your dad.

With Dad in Montana

I love that you love others so well.  I love that you care about how someone else feels and have an empathy for the rest of the world that I think is quite rare (again, this is your daddy in you... and your Heavenly Father at work in your soul).  I love that in spite of the fact that you are quite confused about some of the places I boycott eating at out of principle, you love me enough to go along with it and even go out of your way to honor it when I'm not around. 

I love that at 12 you still want to hang with your parents (although I understand that you are wanting to hang with your friends these days too).  I love that you tell me you love me every day after I hand you your sack lunch.  I love that you tell me you love me at random times when we're just padding around the house - and I love that you can say it in Chinese now.  I love that you love spending hours in the Yellowstone River picking up rocks and floating around.  I love that you have the drive and the patience to learn fly fishing and go on a float and encourage your dad even though he's caught the tiniest trout ever.  I love that you love adventure - rollercoasters, nerf gun wars, begging me for the day when you can go sky diving and bunjee jumping off of the Williams Tower in the Galleria (not yet, dear).  I love that you love college football as much as us and that, like your cousins, uncles and father, you know sports trivia in a way that I never will.

Hanging out in San Diego during our trip this past July/August.

And, I loved our trip, just the 2 of us, to California this summer.  I loved our stops at all the In-N-Out Burgers up and down the West Coast and I loved singing "Payphone" with you by Maroon 5 every time it played on our satellite radio (which was a lot this summer since it was apparently at the top of the charts).  I will never hear that song again without thinking of our road trip along the Pacific.  It was one of the best times ever with you and I am so glad you were willing to be my Wingman on that trip.  I'm also glad that because of that song I could tell you what a payphone was. :)

As always, I can't let a message from me slip by without continuing to speak into your life all the things I hope for you.  I hope you know how much Dad and I love you.  I hope you know how much your Chin and Quan families love you and the beautiful legacy each of these families leave for you in the people they are and the ways they have loved you.  I hope you know how much more God loves you - the deepest love you'll ever know is the Source of the love you've experienced in your family life.  I hope you know that whatever you decide to "be" when you grow up, that your heart leads you there and that you do something you love doing with all the love you can do it with.  Changing the world is a large task and I think parents leave their children with the impression that they are raising them to do something big - like be the President of the United States or start the next Apple - and I think you could do those things.  But when I say to you, "I hope you change the world," I mean that "I hope you love well and that the people who are blessed enough to be around you will be changed and bettered because you have loved them well."  I have no idea what that will look like for you.  But, I do know that I don't really care about you being a huge success story like Bill Gates.  I just care that you stay true to the soul that has been developing in you in this little house in Houston - the "kind Jesus heart" we've seen in you all these years and talked about non-stop.

Happy 12th Gotcha Day, Nate.  I could not be more proud of who you are and who you are becoming.  I am so glad I'm your mother. 

Love Always,

Mom



With your families:  The Chins and The Quans