Dear MacKenzie,

When you woke up this morning, you were a year older. It’s your birthday!

Last night, when I called your daddy so that he and I could discuss top secret birthday surprises, you were already asleep. Well, at least that’s what he thought. I bet you were still awake in your princess bed, thinking about your birthday. It’s hard to sleep the night before your birthday, isn’t it?

I had you on my mind this past weekend, so I went through my pictures of you from all of our adventures together. I came across a picture of you that I hadn’t seen in awhile, a picture someone took of us the first day we met. When you come to spend the night with me, you always ask me to tell you that story before you go to bed at night. But today, on your birthday, I’m going to tell you the story in writing, so you’ll have it in black and white.

I was at your church because Starlite was having a sleepover that night. Your daddy, who worked for the church, was working that Saturday and he had brought you along with him. I remember seeing you peek out of his office, looking at us before running back under his desk.

About an hour later, a school bus pulled up with about a hundred middle school girls. As we were checking them in, we realized we had a medical concern with one girl and things became hectic. There were four or five of us sitting at the registration table trying to find an emergency contact number when you walked up to me, crawled up in my lap, put your hands on both sides of my face and said something that frightened me –

“You look like my mommy.”

I nervously laughed and said something silly back to you, but you didn’t move. You kept your hands on my face, looking at my eyes, my nose, even my ears. I didn’t know it yet, but you were looking for a mama you didn’t even know how to recognize. But something in my features — maybe the color of my hair or the way my cheekbones are shaped — something made you think I could have been your mama, finally coming back home to you.

I was busy and so I passed you off to another girl and went back to my “ministry work.” I thought of you in passing that afternoon as I’d see you run around the gym floor and wondered what your mama looked like seeing as she and I were apparently so similar in appearance.

A bit later, someone from the church pulled me aside and told me they had heard that you thought I was your mama. They said they wanted me to know your story so that I’d understand and, by the time they finished telling me, I was confused and angry and brokenhearted at the thought that there was a little girl without a mother in her life. You’re right, MacKenzie. It isn’t fair.

I went back down the hallway and found you. You looked up at me and something in your little face changed, almost as if you knew that I now knew your story. You jumped up in my arms, wrapped your little legs around my waist, put your hands back on each side of my face and said “You came back for me.”

And I put my nose to yours and said “I came back for you.”

You won’t read this birthday letter until you’re much older. When you turn 16, I’ll print off all the blog posts I’ve written about you as a little girl so that you can see how loved you were. I write you other letters, too, ones that are too personal to be placed on a blog but will be the perfect gift for the day I help you put on your wedding veil and tell you that you’re the most beautiful bride that’s ever lived.

There will be a day in your future when you’ll wake up angry because your mama didn’t stay. You’ll be furious that she isn’t there to drive you to your first day of high school, that she wasn’t the one to wait up late the night you came home from your first date. Your daddy loves you more than life itself, but daddies can’t be mommies no matter how hard they try. And that in itself will frustrate you.

But underneath that anger will be something else, a deep hurt as you wonder why this happened to you, as you wonder why you grew up without a mama. I will still be there, ready to listen, but I already know that no matter what I do for you over these next few years until now, there will still be a void I cannot fill. I am not your mama, no matter how much I wish I was.

But here is the promise I make to you, MacKenzie.

Tonight, when I get off from work, I will drive two hours just to have dinner with you on your birthday. I will call later this week to see how your first day of class went and, like last year, I will tell your teacher that I’d like to be a room mother, too. I will bring cupcakes with little plastic turkeys on top when your class has their Thanksgiving party.

I will take you to the indoor water park that you’ve been wanting to go to for awhile now and I will slide down the biggest slide with you. I will take you to Dollywood at Christmastime just because you like how the rides are lit up with millions of little lights at night. I will take you to the dentist and the doctor and whatever other appointments your dad needs help with over the years.

When you least expect it, I will show up at your school one afternoon when you’re in fifth grade to check you out early. You’ll ask me why I’m there and I’ll tell you that I just thought it was a good afternoon for a girls’ day out. I’ll take you to get your nails painted and then to the mall to pick out a new outfit and then, lastly, to a fancy restaurant for a late afternoon dessert.

I’ll come to your high school to see you in your first play and I’ll be the one holding roses in the audience. I’ll help you pick out earrings for the dress you’ll wear to your first Homecoming dance and I’ll be approving your date for that dance before you’re allowed out the door with him. I’ll help you fill out college applications and then I’ll drive you to those colleges so that we can see which one is right for you.

I’ll be there the day you move in and, by goodness, you will have the cutest dorm room on the hall if I have anything to do with it. I’ll go to the parent orientation meetings and I’ll take notes so I can make sure I don’t miss anything. I’ll send cards to your campus mailbox and I’ll always put a little money inside so that you can go to the dollar movie with the other girls.

They’ll be a thousand more things I’ll do for you that are almost too hard to imagine while you’re still young enough to play with baby dolls. Sometimes, right before I pull out of your driveway, I turn around and look at you in your booster seat and just can’t imagine that you’ll ever be older than you are right now. The days of toys in the bathtub, footie pajamas at bedtime and kisses on your forehead will be over all too soon, so I’m taking every chance I can get to spend these days with you. I promise you that I will be the woman who cherishes these days of your life and I will be the woman who makes promises about the future days of your life, too. I’m in your past, I’m here today in your present and I’m planning to be in your future, too.

But the best promise I can make to you today is one that finds it’s roots in the first day you and I ever met, that moment when you were in my arms, your little hands on my face again.

I will always, always come back for you MacKenzie. Always.

Love,

amy beth