Willow Heart
“I hope someone brings cake to the staff room for you today. And I hope your class behaves, at least until the last bell.”
“I know your students will make you cards full of glitter and spelling mistakes. This one has no glitter, but it has just as much love in it, and maybe more.”
“You did not have to love me, and you chose to anyway. That one choice made you family long before any word for it fit properly.”
“The first time I saw you hold our baby, I fell in love with you all over again. You looked tired and beautiful and completely sure.”
“I bet your desk is covered in handmade cards and candy canes this week. Those kids know how lucky they are to have you, and so do I.”
“I've tried to plant deep roots of strength, kindness, and courage within you. So that when life calls you to explore the world, you'll always know your way home. Take flight, my darling.”
“I wondered if there could possibly be enough love to go around. Then I watched you make room for one more without taking anything from anyone.”
“I have stood in lines and supermarket aisles with you and enjoyed all of it. That is the part nobody ever warns you about. The dull hours stopped being dull.”
“Every summer I get you back from the classroom for a little while. And every September I share you again with a new room full of lucky kids.”
“Soon you will be excited about a new vacuum, and that is how I will know. My kid has officially become a grown up with a home of her own.”
“You could have made me earn my place here over a great many years and nobody would blame you. Instead you sat down next to me at the first dinner and simply started talking.”
“There is a photograph of me holding your grandmother when she was the size you are. I have no idea where the years in between went. Nobody does. They just go.”
“Our house is now full of tiny socks, and I have no idea where half of them go. But I know where all the love in this house comes from, and it is you.”
“I read you a lot of bedtime stories that ended with happily ever after. Today I get to watch yours begin, and it is better than any of them.”
“I have bought you years of bad presents and you thanked me for all of them. This one took me longer than all of those put together, which is not saying much.”
“There is no birthday today and no holiday. I checked the calendar twice. I just wanted you to have something that says what I do not say enough.”
“I do not say it often enough, but I am so proud of you. The way you work, the way you love and the way you never give up.”
“I get the version of you that does not have to ask anybody for permission. No curfew, no homework, and no reason for you to pretend anything is fine when it is not.”
“I am an old man now and I would still stand in front of anyone who came at you. You have not needed that for a long time, and I have not put it down.”
“I had the words ready for a month and I lost every one of them in the moment. You said yes before I had even finished making a mess of the whole speech.”
“You let go of my hand on the walk to school one morning and never took it back. I remember the corner. I do not think you remember the morning at all.”
“You remember the appointments, the permission slips and everyone's favorite snack. Most of it goes unnoticed, but I want you to know that I see it.”
“Fair warning, I will be bragging about this for the next few years. To the neighbors, to my friends and to anyone who stands still long enough.”
“You came to the things that nobody would have blamed you for missing. The concerts, the long ceremonies, the ones that ran on in the rain.”