Goodbye, 2015

Dear Family,

This might be the first year of blur.   The year in which the days seemed short.   We were home less, we ran around more.  

I look back at 2015 and realize we have strengthened.  Dad and I don't pause often to share that with you between soccer and hockey and play practice and school.  Between faith formation lessons and homework and cleaning bedrooms and folding the towels you refuse to reuse.

But we have.  

This is the year you went back to your school not as the new kids.   You tried things you didn't know you would:  Tom running for student council with a campaign speech, Lucy auditioning for a play with kids 5 grades ahead of her, and Jimmy settling in for an extra hour of school at book club each week.   Frankie has been busy in church montessori, learning about the Mass and its special, holy Atrium.   We all have put ourselves out there.

We are proud of you.   We are proud of all these things you have reached for and enjoyed, but we are also proud JUST for the reaching.   We are proud for the times you have seen another student struggling and your teacher has reported how you reached out to help, and we are proud of the times you put yourself second and realized you could be an amazing brother or sister just by slowing down to help our youngest.   You are all so selfless, children.   Sometimes we see you spending your allowance down to the penny for another kid in our family and we are moved.   We want you to look out for yourself, but in being in our family, you have learned that looking out for yourself means giving to the collective.

How beautiful.

Sometimes the daily bumps of living with five other people blot out the shining beauty of this family, but today I see you for the beauty you have glowing inside.   

I see you, Frank, for the sweetness God has given you, which tranfixes us in our hardest moments.  We become angry but are softened by you, Frankie.  

Jimmy, I see you for your innate curiosity.   Your stream of consciousness reflections on life are deep beyond seven years.  You are vulnerable, too; needing our reassurance of love and belief.   

Lucy, I see in you that spark and drive from love.   You are aglow with wanting to share your kindness.  

Tom, I see in you a never-faltering sense of duty.   You always know what is right in life.   When you have the chance to be generous or dutiful, you do it and you don't really have to talk about it. 

Happy New Year's, my children.   I hope that the things your Dad and I are learning each year are passed onto you.  For us, the last few years have illuminated that hardship presses families to either lean into God or to turn away.   We have chosen to lean in, and we feel so strongly that God has surrounded us with a community to support us in our journey.

Love, 

Mom