Dear Kid
Dear kid,
The point isn’t to be astonishing—it’s to be astonished.
To pay attention. To marvel. To appreciate and question and wonder and to share all of that so it doesn’t just die inside of you. Inside: where it can’t grow.
Dear kid,
Instead of trying to give your tooth fairy, Tinkerbell, your Gameboy as a gift for Pan to play with, try giving it to the neighbor’s kids, instead.
Dear kid,
I’m reading a book now that was written by a grandson, like most books are, only this one is the grandfather’s story: his starved time in Leningrad during World War II. At seventeen, he and another man were given two choices by a NKVD colonel: either risk their lives searching for a dozen eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake (you can’t make this up) OR die, for certain. They went looking for the eggs.
The book is that story, all of which took place during the first week of 1942. The week where a seventeen-year-old kid met his wife, ran from cannibals, met his best friend, killed two Germans, and went looking for some eggs. That’s not all of it, either—life’s bigger than the page.
So much can happen in a week. In a day. In an hour.
Time’s potential is scary and it’s precious.
Dear kid,
Breathe. You need to breathe.
Dear kid,
You’re right! When you’re stubborn af, want to be independent, and not allowed to use the stove, microwaving individual pieces of dry pasta until they’re soft totally counts as cooking for yourself! Nicely done.
Dear kid,
I’m sorry you have to imagine a wall going up around your bed, stone by stone, or else you can’t fall asleep at night.
Dear kid,
You’re not going to hell.
Dear kid,
Maybe don’t feed your sister a dog biscuit.
Dear kid,
Stop asking Santa for magical fairy dust that can make all of your stuffed-animals alive—I’m sorry, I really am, it just can’t be done. Keep making the leprechauns little construction-paper-top-hats every Saint Patrick’s Day though, that’s cute.
Dear kid,
You already matter.
Dear kid,
You, who gets up fast from the dinner table after the meal is over, scared of missing out on whatever your cousins are cooking up. Stay. Your grandfather is telling his life in a series of stories—the war, the South Pole, the film-making, the emigrating, the asshole teacher he told to “choke, you bastard.” You don’t want to miss hearing them all in his own voice. You will, though.
Thank God he wrote them down.
Dear kid,
The point isn’t to be remembered but to remember, yourself.
Dear kid,
Keep believing in people.
Dear kid,
Your first name is actually Margaret—it’s weird that no one’s told you yet. Let me, because I don’t want you to find out one day in preschool when a bob-haired teacher won’t stop yelling at you for writing the wrong thing on your chef-hat. See above for how to spell it, too, because she won’t help you there, instead saying “You should know how to spell your own name.” Fair, but “Margaret” is not spelled out the way it sounds! Especially when heard for the first time by a four-year-old.
Dear kid,
You go to golf camp. Golf camp. For multiple summers. Full khakis-and-visor golf camp. Why?!!!
I know, I know. Your older cousin is doing it and you (very ironically) want to look cool and do it with him. And you love your dad more than anything and your dad loves golf and so it is something to do together. But you don’t like golf! You just don’t realize it yet because you haven’t learned to look to yourself. Determine what it is that makes you happy.
Still, it was pretty entertaining when that kid fell off the back of the golf-cart one day and broke his arm.
Dear kid,
You are not “too sensitive.” You’re not weak. You just care.
So much. About everything and everyone—that is so fucking beautiful.
Dear kid,
When you can’t find the light, learn to be the light for others
Dear kid,
Your body is your own.
Dear kid,
It’s time to care about yourself, too.
Dear kid,
Where you are right now is my backwards—and backwards is somewhere I don’t want to be.
That’s where things happened—and I want to happen. To live and to thrive. And I know you want that, too. We’ll get there.
Keep going.
Sources:
Benioff, David. “City of Thieves Reader’s Guide.” Penguin Random House, Penguin Random House, May 2008, www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/291168/city-of-thieves-by-david-benioff/9780452295292/readers-guide.