For My Daughter on her Sweet Sixteenth Birthday

My Sweet Sweet LondyLaWoo,

Sixteen. What a powerful, in-between age — no longer a child, not yet grown, standing right on the bridge between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming. I wish I could be standing there with you today, brushing the hair from your eyes like I used to, telling you how proud I am of the young woman you’re growing into. Even from a distance, I feel it. I feel you.

There’s something about sixteen that breaks a mother open in a different way. It reminds me of all your firsts… your first steps, your first stubborn streak, the first time you laughed so hard I swear I felt God in the room. You have always had a heart that knows more than your age — intuitive, deep, and beautifully yours.

I want you to know something that matters more than any birthday card or gift could ever say:

I have never stopped loving you. Not for a minute. Not through distance, silence, or anything life has thrown between us.

My love didn’t shrink — it grew. It stretched. It learned patience. It learned hope.

And when you read this one day, I want you to hear this clearly:

You were never forgotten. You were never abandoned. You were always carried — in my thoughts, in my prayers, in the deepest, quietest rooms of my heart.

Wherever your life takes you from sixteen onward, I hope you remember that the world is big, beautiful, and yours to shape. You have strength in your bones and softness in your spirit — a combination that makes you unstoppable.

And whenever the day comes that you want to know me again, or ask the hard questions, or let me love you up close instead of from afar… I’ll be here. Always.

With everything I am,

Mom