This is My Promise to You

~A letter to my Son who has Down Syndrome~

WONDER -

you are the embodiment of all that WONDER is. You are the exact definition: “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable”.

 I didn’t know until you were born what kind of life you would usher in. You were unexpected in your quick arrival, and your extra chromosome unfamiliar to anything I had known before. You are the unexplained of this world, challenging people AND me to see things differently.

YOU WERE AND ARE CAUSED  BY SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL. 

WONDER is a bit of an oxymoron to me. A mix of emotions, thoughts, and experiences released as a result of something else. Your WONDER comes from a prism of angles, sources, and colors of refracted beauty for the world to absorb and experience in all its intended purity.

I know, as your momma, that I have been commissioned, for now, to be protector of your wonder; to be one who moves space so you can expand your wonder and to teach you how to do the same. 

IN FACT, You are ALREADY expressing your place, taking a stand and holding space on your own. I can sense and see you grasping for more as I gently let go and let you stand in more. 

The tension of holding space for you to expand isn’t void of HARD. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s within the tension of the HARD things that the most profound places of WONDER are found. 

So,

I, your momma, promise to hold that tension without fear.

I, your momma, promise to teach and train YOU to hold it and cherish it, and fight for it too.

I, your momma, promise to lean in and embrace the hard things in order to free you to expand in your WONDER as you grow - WHEREVER it takes you and WHEREVER you go. .

 This is my promise to you.