For My Daughter on her Eighteenth Birthday…

October 17, 2025

My Beautiful Blue Eyed Girl,

Eighteen. An age that feels like a sunrise — bright, full of possibility, and carrying the quiet power of stepping into your own life. I wish I could be right beside you today, watching you cross that threshold into adulthood, seeing the woman you’ve become. But even if my hands aren’t on your shoulders, my heart is.

Eighteen doesn’t erase the years behind you — it gathers them. It turns them into wisdom. It hands you the pen and says, “Go on. Write your story now.” And I hope you write boldly.

There’s something I need you to know before you turn the page of this new chapter:

Nothing you’ve lived, felt, chosen, or struggled with has ever made you unlovable. Not to me. Not for a single day.

Life threw us into a storm none of us were prepared for, and distance grew in places I wish it hadn’t. But separation doesn’t erase origin — you came from my body, my heart, my dreams. And that connection doesn’t disappear. It waits. It breathes. It hopes.

If you’re reading this many years from now, I want you to know something else:

I love the woman you’re becoming.

I love the girl you were.

And I love the parts of you you still haven’t discovered yet.

Eighteen is courageous. It’s messy. It’s honest. It’s the beginning of choosing for yourself — who you want to be, how you want to love, and how you want to heal.

And when the time comes that you want to understand me, ask me things, reconnect, or just sit in the same room without words — I will be here. Not asking for perfection, not asking for anything except the chance to love you the way I always meant to.

Wherever this life leads you, take this truth with you;

You were my beginning.

You are still my middle.

And you will always be part of my forever.

With a love that has never dimmed,

Mom