Wishes for My Daughter
My daughter turns eighteen today. For her birthday I am giving her a set of Agatha Christie novels, a Billie Holiday T-shirt and a CD by an alternative rock group whose name I could hardly bring myself to say at the music store. But like the fairies who gathered around Sleeping Beauty`s bassinet, what I wish for her cannot be bought. As she crosses the threshold into womanhood, I wish that:
·She discovers a calling she is so passionate about that it is impossible to tell where work leaves off and life begins.
·Good fortune and reasonable caution collaborate to keep her safe in a violent world.
·Just once she falls in love so hard with the wrong person that the ride is worth the fall.
·She continues to be lifelong friends with her brothers (who else could commiserate with her so well about what
they call "Moms ways?")
·She never has to wear hose and heels for work, only for dancing.
·She enjoys good health (accompanied someday with a recognition of the need for outerwear in winter, which
other parents tell me will kick in when she is about twenty-one.)
·She spends her life in the company of great dogs, good books and loyal friends.
·She finds a community of faith in which she feels at home.
·She continues to make music all of her life, even if - maybe especially if -
its just for fun.
·She finds a wonderful husband with a great sense of humor who adores women, especially her (but not for at
least a decade).
·She discovers its more important to be purposeful than happy, and more important to be happy than rich.
·She experiences sex as both profound and hilarious.
·She has at least one child, so she can forgive her parents. (Okay, okay, only if she really wants one.)
·The breast cancer epidemic is under control by the time she reaches the age of significant risk.
·In these coming years she is able to separate from her father and me without pain and guilt (well, not too much
guilt.)
·She continues to regard food as one of the great pleasures of life, and never gets crazed about dieting.
·She has many wonderful adventures involving passports and cross-country train trips, but that she does not terrify
me with the dangerous parts until much later, over a glass of wine that shes buying.
·She always knows she can count on her parents` unconditional love, even when we drive her head-banging crazy.
~ Rebecca Christian ~