A Dying Mother's Letter

The writer Lisa Belkin, columnist of the New York Time's Motherlode wrote in today's column ("A Dying Mother's Letter" - http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/a-dying-mothers-letter/) about the letter Elizabeth Edwards had been writing to her kids. The letter, years in the making, supposedly contains all the advice, big and small, a parent would want to bestow upon her kids. Belkin wrote about being inspired to write a similar letter for her sons, but that the task was so enormous, it was overwhelming.

I immediately thought of my blog and all that I want to be able to tell Oliver. Writing to your kids is indeed an enormous task, because it's impossible to record a life's worth of lessons and advice. I think you've got to start somewhere though. In my case, one blog entry at a time. While the purpose of my writing hasn't been to give advice, my values, my personality, my lessons learned, are all woven into the stories I tell about Oliver's childhood and my experience as a mom. Many entries are hastily written and the ideas not well-conveyed, and some entries will never be posted. But I keep writing.

I hope to live a very long life and assume that I will be around along enough to help Oliver grow up well into adulthood. Oliver will hopefully have many positive memories of me and will have learned a lot about his mom and life in general from our daily conversations and interactions. But what will he know about his mom before he was born or from a time in his life where few memories remain? What remained unsaid or became forgotten in the daily pace of life?

Writing a blog lets me record experiences or thoughts on a subject as they happen so the memories aren't altered or forgotten with time. I can tell stories that might not come up in conversation or aren't of interest to or at the comprehension level of a young kid. My thoughts are more coherently and eloquently presented than the give-and-take of a casual conversation. And I hope that someday the stories written in my voice will complement Oliver's memories of me.

I was lucky to have my mom in my life as long as I had and I still have many clear memories of her. But how much I wish she had left similar writings behind. I obviously didn't know her as a young adult and I only knew her in the context of being my mom, so to read about what she thought and felt when she was a young mom would have been incredible.

Few of us have famous moms who have had articles and books written about them. But despite everything written about Elizabeth Edwards, little of it will probably help her children understand who their mom was, what she believed, how she wanted her kids to succeed or what they can learn from her. And some of what was written will be painful for her kids to read, whether the information was accurate or unfair. So as much of a public figure as Elizabeth Edwards was, the most important and informative piece of writing for her kids will undoubtedly be their mother's "dying letter."