My Dearest and Only Daughter

I found this note from my wife to our daughter while looking through the documents file for an article. It seems appropriate to post it with Mother's Day so near. If you are a mom, I'm sure you love your daughter(s) in the manner described here. If you are a daughter and have a beautiful mother like this, love her while you still have her. If she has gone on ahead, rejoice in your memories of her.

My Dearest and Only Daughter,

I saw you and held you for the first time when you were only minutes old. If God is love, then only a parent can know what love really means. To love someone who came from you, this is what a mother’s love is and this is the love I feel for you, my child.

It is a kind of love that knows pain. Like the time when you wouldn’t take a bottle and I had to take you to the hospital. Or the time you fell out of Aunt Pat’s truck and got a big goose egg on your head. Or your first day of kindergarten. You cried as I was leaving and I went home and cried too because I knew that you missed me and were sad.

It is a kind of love that knows fear and I’ll never forget the fear I felt (every mother’s worst fear) when you disappeared out of the yard at Alligator. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared. Or so happy and mad at the same time when I found you. I whipped you all the way home and I’m sure I cried harder than you while I was doing it.

It is the kind of love that knows pride, the kind of pride that can only come when a dear daughter does well. Like the day you graduated with honors. I couldn’t have been prouder if I had been the one graduating.

You’re all grown up now and a young woman out in the world. I still love you and always will. My heart still breaks when your heart hurts. I fear for you and pray God’s protection for you every night before I go to bed. And I am still proud of you though you might not think I am sometimes.

You are still my baby and always will be until I die and even after that. I love you with all that I am and have.

Mom