Your mom and I had decided to throw Grammy a 50th birthday party, but we had it in February instead of her actual birthday to throw her off, so technically, it was her 50 1/2 party. Because it was winter, your mom and dad had set up tables in the garage for everyone to sit and eat. You were about 18 months old, toddling around and using new words daily, but you were still using a high chair. You were sitting in it by one of the tables, and I am pretty sure your hands were a mess from reaching for whatever food was on the tray. When I walked to the top of the steps to go into the garage, you looked at me, moved your hand away from the food to point at me, and said, “Aunt Beth.” I am pretty sure, at that moment, all the love I felt for you bubbled up inside and spilled over until there was a little pool of gooey-emotional-Aunt Beth laying at the top of the steps. It was a moment I will remember for as long as I live.
A little over fourteen years later, and I still have these moments of ooey-gooey-emotion, and not just in the memories of you as a cute-as-a-button baby, which you were, but in the everyday blessing of being Aunt Beth. Seeing you make a running one-armed save or perfectly dig a rockin’ hit in volleyball brings tears to my eyes. Watching you prepare for prom, a picture of grace, makes my cheeks hurt from smiling. Listening to you in conversations, a quiet confidence and humility, and my heart beats with pride.
Turning 16 is such an awesome-crazy-scary time. Hope, questions, answers, fears, faith, strength, fearlessness, insecurities, confusion, certainty... it is quite possibly the most paradoxical time in life. The best part of all of it, though, is the unlimited possibility that stretches before you. Yes, it’s a little scary, too, but I think that is what makes it even more exciting. I am not going to bore you with some curmudgeonly advice about learning from my, or any other adult’s, mistakes. While I do think it’s important to do that, I also realize that one: it doesn’t matter how many people give us advice; we usually think we have it figured out on our own, and two: making mistakes is how we figure out who we are and who we want to be. Making mistakes means making memories, some good, some not. Making mistakes means we are willing to risk falling in order to rise.
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I have another memory of when you were young: for your first Christmas Eve, I bought you some crazy pajamas with a matching jester hat. Obviously, you had no idea what was going on or why everyone was ooohing and ahhhing. Now, I’ve never been called a fashionista - good heavens, if I could wear sneakers and tee-shirts and shorts every day, I would - but I can remember buying that for you. Yes, I wanted you to look adorable, but I also remember thinking how important it is to be silly sometimes, and how important it is to laugh at our silliness.
I am absolutely certain you are going to weather the awesome-crazy-scary time of 16 and beyond not just because you are determined and compassionate and witty and trustworthy and intelligent. Those are amazing qualities indeed, and I have seen those amazing qualities in you time and again. But I have also seen you giggly with your sister, punchy with Rachel, and giddy with me. This is what makes me so sure of you: you know how to be silly. It is an amazing quality that will make the lessons from mistakes easier to see and gives us strength. You know how to laugh at yourself, and you don’t even need a funny hat to do it.
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