A letter of hope

Dear Mother in law,

I'm writing this letter to you, to give you an update on our family. We think of you often and pray for you daily and hope one day that we will see you again...

To start off, I wanted to fill you in on our lives with our two precious girls who are both incredibly sweet and have an abundance of curiosity.

Sophie is in first grade and has gotten straight A's this year.  She has God in her heart and reminds us how blessed we truly are.  She performed in the Nutcracker twice now and lives up to her middle name, she is definitely full of grace. She asks about her Granny often and when she will see you again, questions we can not answer, but instead we pray that we will have you in our life again.

And Gia, she has more spirit in her little body and has a way of commanding a rooms attention with just her smile.  She is in preschool now at our church and is enjoying socializing and learning in a group setting.  She started ballet this year and is tiptoeing her heart out trying to keep up with her big sister. She asks about who you are and why she hasn't seen you, but for now we show her pictures and again we pray.

Your son.  Your unbelievably intelligent, hard-working, family loving son.  He is everything to me and the girls.  What an amazing man you raised.  Jake is serving our country and flying the stealth bomber, a dream come true for him.  How proud you would be of all he has accomplished.  As a Father he is present and the girls are smitten with him.  Before bedtime he sings songs from his childhood that you once sang to him and tells the three of us childhood stories of the loving Mother that you were to him when he was young.  Helping him with his science eco-system project, caring for him when he was sick and how on Sundays he and his sister would put together a newspaper to bring in to you in the morning.

Lastly there is me, your daughter in law.  I am keeping busy with running the household and blessed to be a stay at home Mom.  I know you know the beauty and the struggles of taking care of everyone and hope one day we can talk over tea about how Jake was as a child when he was only a boy.  Until then, I will continue to pray that the two of you let down your guards and surrender the past.

I felt a pull in my heart to write this.  I don't know if you will read it or not.  I hope that you will.  You are loved by your grandchildren even if they have only a handful of memories of you.  You are loved by your son even if you haven't heard the sound of each others voices in years.  And I have love in my heart for you as well, as the Mother of my husband.

My hope is that before 2016 comes to an end, there will be answered prayers and healed hearts.  And maybe if the stars align, you will sing, Nani Nani, the lullaby you sang to Jake, while holding your grand girls.

Sincerely,

Tiffany