Words of love for a grown-up daughter on her graduation day

The Boston Herald

Dear Lauren,

Here it is, certainly the most important day in your life so far, and I find myself thinking in cliches - "It seems like only yesterday. Where did the time go?" - because I really don't want to think at all. I'm fine as long as I don't look back or ahead - as long as I live only this day. But this day invites reflection.

You are graduating from college. You are officially grown up. You have been for a while. But now the world will know it. In a few hours you will have a diploma; you will have proof. How can I not stop at this juncture of your life and of our life together, and remember what brought us here?

I think about how for so many years I used to bargain with God to give me days enough so that you would always remember me. I got extra days, years of extra days, and they have been a gift. I never cease to wonder why I've been so lucky, why of all the children in the world I got you to love. In the hospital, after you were born, the nurses came and told me you were the sweetest baby. They taped a pink ribbon on your bald head and I peered through the nursery window with your father and kept repeating the word "daughter." I couldn't believe I had you.

But then I brought you home and all you did was cry. I fed you and you cried; I rocked you and you cried. I walked with you from room to room, bouncing you, shshing you and still you cried. I think you cried a lifetime of tears back then, most of the tears you were allotted. But once you found your smile, the tears were few. You were a happy little girl, who had some unhappy times. But there has always been within you a solid core of joy.

When you stand with your fellow graduates today, you might think how quickly the last four years have passed. It was such a short time ago your father and I first drove you and most of your belongings to school. You said it yourself the other day. You wondered where the time went. That's how I feel about your life. It was a short time ago you were upstairs playing with Baby Alive; redecorating your doll house; making greeting cards from Fashion Plates; pretending to be Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz"; pretending with Amy. And yet it was a lifetime ago.

But I can still hear you on the phone calling from Campfire Girls to tell me to come get you. I can still see you walking through the door, smiling because David Gilmarten asked you to Spring Fling. I can feel even now, all these years later, your defeat and your pain as you shuffled off to school, head bent, shoulders slumped, because your friend betrayed you. I'm so ugly. I'm so fat. I hate the way I look. Do you think I'm fat? Years of adolescent insecurity. Thumping up the stairs, slamming the door, clicking furiously on the typewriter, writing out hurt and confusion and fear. Did you ever think you'd get through it? Sometimes I didn't think I'd get through it. But here we are just a few years later, so much wiser and happier.

Look at you now. Look who you are. Look how you've grown, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Look how you've blossomed. I wish I could pinpoint the moment when you stopped looking into others' eyes for approval and began looking into your own. But I can't, any more than I can remember when our relationship changed. When you became not just my daughter, but my soulmate and my friend. I got lucky when I had you 21 years ago. I knew it then, but I didn't know just how lucky. I didn't know that the moment of birth could be eclipsed by such ordinary things: An unasked-for hug. A "Mommy, I'm home." A fistful of dandelions. A secret told only to me.

Life will continue to get better from here. That's what I want to tell you today. You're going to love being a grown-up. It's what you have always ached to be. Away from school you will be free to be you. Schools reward you if you fit in. The world rewards you if you stand out. And you stand out, my daughter. You always have. And you always will.