Dear future

Dear future teenagers of mine,

I'm sure by now you have told me you hated me or casually mentioned how I have single handily destroyed your social life, and while I'm sure both of these things are true exaggerated I want to shove one more lesson down your sweet little throats. It's not a lesson easily learned, most people have to learn the hard way before it is finally taught, but I'm hoping against hope that you can be those people who nod, and have an amazing epiphany that will last your entire lifetime. I know...doubtful right. Well here goes anyway.

You aren't invulnerable. Bad things can and will happen to you. I was your age once, hard to imagine right? And although I wasn't as blatant as some teenagers when it came to my belief in my youthful longevity and immortality, I also never believed that I would ever become the lead in a comedic-tragedy. But life has a way of making you into an ironic lesson when you least suspect it.

Even though I have everything I could ever need, I do not have everything I want! I want an absolute. I need to know that you will grow up safe and secure, and that you will fulfill your every potential. I want what all parents want...I want you to get through life with minimal scarring. I want you to smile, laugh, and love, and I want you to be strong enough to survive even the most devastating event imaginable...

Your father...he sees a lot of horrific things because of his job... this you know. He meets with death nearly every shift. He photographs that cold stranger in all it's glory...in all it's devastation. And your father is tainted, just a little, by it's gruesome appearance. You can sense it sometimes. You can sense when it has seeped into his skin and taken up residence like some sort of damn virus. Sometimes it's the way he holds his head, or the rounding of his shoulders, sometimes the weight of the dead is just too damned much for any one man to handle. And still...I want an absolute. I want a promise that because he is your father's coworker...that death won't come to visit us. Not until we are all old and gray and ready.

But I also know we don't always get what we want. So if by some miracle you are reading this letter, and you have survived into adulthood. If Puck's heart is healed and whole, and neither one of you took your mortality for granted...then know this...Nobody's life is special. No one gets a pass, not one person is exempt from tragedy or from the challenges that make up our life. Every person will suffer their own trials, and fate will mock us all on occasion. But if you can learn that no hurt big or small needs to be suffered alone...then there is always time to heal. And perhaps that's the only absolute in this life. The love a parent has for their child. I would die for you...but more importantly...I would live for you. If fate was so cruel as to take from me a person I could not live without. I would get up everyday, and I would continue on. For you.

You aren't invulnerable, but you are loved unconditionally. Remember that.

Mom.