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Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Elias Simon Brown
Well, I know my life has been anything but normal for about a year now which is why the long silence on my blog. Part of all that change is this amazing new little person in our life. I can't express how much joy and peacefulness and love he has added to our home. He is an incredible gift to us. So he deserves to have at least one post on my blog even if I never post again! (I would like to start posting occasionally- but I am not making any promises.) People have been asking for pictures of him so-- here you go! Enjoy!
A Thank You Letter for My Mom
I wrote this letter for my mom for her birthday and wanted to post it here. I know she touched so many lives and if you have a way that Mom influenced yours that you are thankful for, please share! It is such a comfort to me and my family to know all the ways that her legacy lives on in others!
March 14, 2013
Dear Mommy,
Today was your birthday.
A year ago you turned 60 and I wanted to do something really special for
you when you came back to the States but it never happened. This year you spent
your birthday with God. I guess it can’t get any better than that! But I wanted to write you for myself because
I keep thanking you for things as I go about my life now without you. Since your death my eyes have been opened in
a new way to the myriad of ways you have shaped my life and taught me. I know I said thank you before many times throughout
your life for being a wonderful mother, and even as you were dying I hugged you
and thanked you for as many things as I could think of but I just keep thinking
of more. I keep realizing how pretty much everything I am or am capable of
stems from something you directly taught me, or the home that you created for
us, or how you modeled living life. So,
for your 61st birthday here are 61 things I am thankful for- in no
purposeful order.
Thank you Mom
1.
For being a MOM- the kind of mom everyone longs
to have- loving, comforting, encouraging, supportive, approachable, available
2.
For telling me you were proud of me- as a little
kid, as a teenager, as grown up, as a wife, as a parent. This is so important
to me now that you are gone. Remembering
that you were proud of me helps me feel confident when I feel anything but
worthy of someone’s pride.
3.
For letting me live my own life, come into my
own faith, make choices that now in retrospect I know you weren’t sure about or
totally in agreement with, but you supported ME and I never felt like a failure
or incompetent because you listened and gently counseled.
4.
For teaching me hospitality
5.
For modeling loving everyone God puts in your
path
6.
For teaching me that seeking transformation by
continually putting yourself in God’s presence and truly, deeply desiring to do
His will is Life’s ultimate goal- you were so incredibly beautiful because you
embodied this.
7.
For praying over me and for me so faithfully my
whole life. For praying that I would
know God’s love. I have lost my most faithful prayer warrior.
8.
For trusting my parenting style even when it was
different from yours. For telling me I
am a good mom.
9.
For making me charts when I was little and
positively reinforcing my efforts.
10.
For taking me out to eat before my wedding to
make sure I had time to ask you any questions if I wanted to.
11.
For our mommy/daughter retreat when I started
puberty.
12.
For sewing me so many clothes and ultimately my
gorgeous wedding dress.
13.
For packing me lunches.
14.
For not only packing my lunches every day I went
to school but making them with creative flair- no peanut butter sandwiches for
me everyday!
15.
For sometimes writing me encouraging notes in my
lunches.
16.
For creating family traditions like doughnuts on
Christmas Eve and hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls for the car trip to the
beach and reading out loud together.
17.
For simple rituals of chai or hot chocolate and
fruit every morning with breakfast.
18.
For your incredible brunches.
19.
For teaching me about quiet time with God-
modeling how to pray and read scripture.
20.
For modeling that it’s ok to question what you
believe in and to continually search for God.
21.
For buying me a bread maker for Christmas and
teaching me how to make bread.
22.
For teaching me how to express my milk when it
“came in” after Hannah and how I have never had a breast infection thanks to
you.
23.
For teaching me how to dress a newborn.
24.
For cuddling my babies.
25.
For singing to my children. I wish I had you recorded because I can’t
remember all the words to the songs you used to sing them.
26.
For singing to me every night and on nights when
I really needed your comfort for singing a long time and rubbing my back.
27.
For calling me “your snuggle-bug and your
pumpkin” when I was little and for still occasionally calling me that even when
I was all grown up.
28.
For teaching me how to plan monthly menus.
29.
For teaching me how to plan and cook a meal so
everything ends up hot at the same time. (I don’t often do this, but it’s not
because I don’t know how!)
30.
For loving nature.
31.
For playing games with us.
32.
For listening patiently to me while I learned to
read.
33.
For making my scrapbook when I graduated from
high school and then redoing it later when it was getting old so you could make
it even better!
34.
For not reading my diaries while I was growing
up even though you really wanted to. (Now I wish I had kept my promise and let
you read them when I was 21 like you asked!)
35.
For letting me have Michiko and enduring her
shedding and having puppies in the house and allowing her to be a part of the
family even though you don’t even really like dogs.
36.
For buying me a bird.
37.
For encouraging my interests and facilitating
them.
38.
For warm chocolate chip cookies and apple slices
and a glass of milk after school.
39.
For telling me I am beautiful.
40.
For helping me get a job my freshman year of
college that I could handle with the stress of this new phase of life.
41.
For coming back to the States with me my first
year of college. (The whole family deserves my thanks for that!)
42.
For accepting Shawn and truly treating him like
he was your own son.
43.
For encouraging me in my parenting of Hannah.
44.
For cooking endless pounds of meat, and making
numerous casseroles and pot pies and meals for me when my babies were born.
45.
For hot chocolate and cinnamon toast at 6am in
the morning when nursing a newborn.
46.
For rubbing my head and my back and combing my
hair and breathing with me and encouraging me during labor.
47.
For swallowing your panic and supporting me both
times I hemorrhaged after my girls’ births.
48.
For never questioning my decision to have home
births.
49.
For washing towels and sheets and diapers and
baby clothes, making beds, cleaning floors, washing dishes- for all the
numerous ways you kept my home running after I had my girls and allowed me such
precious time of bonding with my babies.
50.
For teaching me that my marriage is my upmost
priority by modeling that in your own marriage.
51.
For teaching me to sew and then never
complaining when I never used the skill but just asked you to sew for me….. you
always did with great joy and willingness.
Thank you for all the beautiful curtains in my home.
52.
For a recipe box full of recipes in your own
handwriting painstakingly collected from our own family favorites and from
friends to give me for my wedding.
53.
For sharing your journey through life so openly
with me when I was older so we could be friends. And I have learned SO much
from that sharing.
54.
For listening and listening and listening and
listening to all my joys, all my sorrows and all the mundane in between.
55.
For teaching me how to get food stuck of a pan
by boiling water in it
56.
How to make the creamiest cream of wheat
57.
For celebrating me and pivotal moments in my
life (like graduations and birthdays and goals accomplished) with extravagance
and gifts and outings-making me feel so special and loved. I have so many good
memories of moments like that.
58.
For being at Elias’ birth at 4am even though you
had a brain biopsy 5 days earlier.
59.
For caring for the poor and unjustly treated.
60.
For learning another language at the age of 58.
61.
For giving yourself completely to LOVE.
I am so thankful that I am one of your children. I am so
blessed to call you mother. I love you. I miss you deeply.
Yours Always,
Rebekah
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