Dear Daughter,

[The last time I] wrote you, I was 25 weeks pregnant, and I hadn’t yet experienced the miracle of seeing your face. It’s now been two months since the midwife caught the squirmy, slimy, perfect alien from my belly (that was you) and said that you were mine. Every day since then, I haven’t been able to stop marveling at your beauty. It’s not mainly a matter of your appearance—although you are adorable—but instead, it’s the radiance of your whole personhood. Here’s what I see when I look at you.

Hello lovely – You don't exist in this world yet, but I’m already in love with you and how deeply beautiful you are. The mere hint of your existence is exciting and overwhelming.

I’m excited to meet you and witness how your presence will shift the world.

Dear daughter,

With each passing day you grow a little taller, you toddle a little faster, you babble a little more. Your fears are few (and make no sense): you’ll fly off the stairs and you have no concept of the edge of a bed, but a threshold from one room to the next makes you stop dead to carefully tiptoe over, holding on to the door frame for dear life.

My family lived in a village outside of Dohuk, Iraq (Kurdistan) in the fall of 1988. I was 1.5 and my brother was 3 weeks old. Neighboring villagers rushed to come tell us that Sadamm and his army was on the move and we needed to leave. We left with the clothes on our backs and fear in our hearts. The journey on foot over the treacherous mountains seemed to take forever. We finally made it across the border to Turkey and settled in a refugee camp in Mardin, Turkey.

In high school I knew I wanted to be a pastor. I lived for church. I yearned for church. It was the place I wanted to be at all times. I tried to “save” my friends. I was worried about my eternal salvation and of course, like any good Christian girl, I was worried about my virginity.

I had sex for the first time at 18. I was one of the last of my friends to cash in their v-card, and it was something that I was embarrassed by and worried unnecessarily about. I had this twisted idea in my head that because I held onto it longer than most people that it was somehow correlated with my self worth.

During high school I was scrupulous in my pursuit of God. Enchanted by the idea of saving myself for someone special and keeping myself pure, I devoured books like “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and wore shirts with catchy slogans like “Modest is Hottest.” My friends and I created accountability groups where we confessed unholy thoughts we had about romantic interests (which we knew would never come into fruition because our crushes were people we merely admired from afar).

My drapes may speak to you and you may judge me upon your field of vision.

My build of human body may bewilder you, but only from a distance or a glance.

Time.

Day after day.

Night after night.

My father suffered from alcoholism. As a result, we all suffered. I was three-and-a-half years old when my parents’ divorce was final. My baby sister was still an infant. While some may believe toddlers won’t remember, I assure you, that is a myth.

So I guess my change of heart could be summed up as this:  that of an adoring, unconditional love to one of hate, and finally sympathy and distance.  I guess some stories are incapable of having a happy ending for everyone.

Christmas, a time for connecting with old friends.  In the week between Christmas and New Years Eve, people consider the age-old tradition of setting New Years resolutions.  Already I’ve seen countless memes wishing the end of 2016 away as the year to forget.  When we look back at 2016, we remember endless months of campaigning commercials; the Chicago Cubs finally won the World Series after 108 years, Brexit from the EU, Samsung’s misstep with the explosive Note 7.  But even more than that, remember the good stuff…and good stuff in 2016 exists.  Like my beautiful niece’s first birthday party, laughs shared with coworkers, parties with friends, and the first date that led to a relationship.

Mama Jones’ little aluminum tree                                               
Sits atop the library table
Strung with silver garland
And the few unbroken decorations
We could find.

I want to tell you about the time my sister, my mother, and I followed the desire of my sister’s heart. We went into the clock store at the mall. My sister went first when the idea came to her. She found the grandfather clock she believed would fit grandma’s house best—the one she thought grandma would want.

I resent Christmas more and more the older I get. It’s a combination of my lack of religion, my extreme laziness and my crippling anxiety. I stress myself out to the point of hyperventilation over how much money I’m going to spend (how many years can I skate by on homemade gifts before it becomes tacky?), what to get people (is it appropriate to just give someone a Target gift card if you’ve known them for over 10 years?), and about how I’m going to get it for them (do I shop online and hope that it ships in time, or do I brave the masses of the screaming kids and sweaty people at the mall?). Once I’ve got the gifts in hand, I look forward to the feeling of sweet, sweet relief that I get when I’ve handed them off, although I really don’t start to feel remotely relaxed until after the new year.

We all lose people we love, and in my experience, there are so many things I wish I could have asked but never got the chance to. So, I dedicated an afternoon to asking my grandmother – who raised three kids, saw a good chunk of the world, was a military wife and then found herself raising me in retirement – some questions that I can cherish forever. I also took the opportunity to take some pictures of her house, a time capsule that has barely changed in my life. It turned out to be an incredibly emotional moment for me when I sat down later on and listened to her answers. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into her life.

Evelyn Grace Swearman-Rice was my great-grandmother. Everyone in my family knew her simply as Grandma Rice. Everyone who knew her, including myself remember her as a sweet, gentle woman who loved everyone that she met. She always had something nice to say, and you never heard her swear. She’d give you her shoulder to cry on, a kiss to make you feel better and a whole mess of candy even if you weren’t supposed to eat any!

On October 24, 2015 my grandmother, Virginia Shoemaker, turned 90. We had a huge celebration, with her family coming home from all across the US. She was over the moon thrilled. She loved being the center of attention and even more she loved being around so many people that she hardly ever gets to see. The day of her birthday she told me that she didn’t sleep a wink the night before because she was just so excited.

The backstory:

It was my birthday. It was February 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. I was headed to a birthday party. It was not a birthday party for me (mine was the night prior), and I was heavily intoxicated because of that. I was hanging out with my ex-boyfriend (who is actually a great human and the best ex anyone could ask for) and his weird friend before the party, and part of me was concerned we would never actually make it to said party.

In my adult years I have gone on six first dates.

The first, first date happened after a night of drunken dancing with a neighbor at a local bar when I was 21 years old. I decided maybe I should get to know him a little better after being so close to him for several hours.