The assignment:  Write a letter to your child.  Like Hamlet’s father, share your thoughts in writing with your own child as she/he prepares to leave home. Are there lessons you have learned in life that you wish to impart to them? In short, do you have advice to offer them?

….nothing like spending a week wondering if you’ve taught your kid anything of value over the past 17 years before you send him out into the big, bad world….

Kids do not come with owner’s manuals.  They don’t come one size fits all, either.  So as a parent, you make things up as you go, hoping against hope, what soaks in is all the good stuff, and all the screw ups are forgotten.  We teach by example, and Lord knows, none of us are perfect.  But we love our kids, and that makes up for a lot of mistakes.  Still, looking back on what wisdom I’ve passed down made me pause.  (A really long pause.)  And then I realized the wisdom I hope I’ve passed on is nothing new.

January 9, 2017

Dear Nate,

Your teacher has provided me the wonderful opportunity to review the life lessons I have passed on to you over the last 17 years, so I made a list.

1. Hold your cuffs when you slide your arms into your winter coat so your sleeves don’t bunch up.
2. Pie for breakfast is absolutely okay if you also have a glass of milk.
3. Reddi-Whip straight out of the canister is one of the best things in life (just don’t do it in front of company).
4. There is no such thing as too many books – just not enough bookshelves….

All good tips, yes.  But life lessons?  Eh….

So, I thought back to what life lessons my parents taught me.  If you ask Grandma Pearl, she’ll tell you she tried to instill the belief in all her children that ‘first impressions are the most important.’  Those six words were the bane of my childhood existence.  I swore I would never say them to you.  It’s not that there isn’t truth in them – there is.  First impressions are important.  It’s just that over the years, as I grew up, I came to the conclusion the statement is actually incomplete, and that’s where Papa Swanky’s life lesson comes into play.

As a kid, every time I brought home a report card, I had to sit down and go class by class, comment by comment, through the card with Papa.  Before he signed the card indicating he had seen it, Papa would look me straight in the eye and ask, “Did you do your best?”

Now, nothing stops a kid faster in her tracks than being pinned to the spot and asked to justify the results of a semester’s actions detailed on a report card.  A bit stunned (and scared – you know Papa!), of course, I stuttered out, “Y-yes.” Papa would then look back at the report card and back up at me and pause.  (It was a really long pause.) Finally, he would reply, “That’s all I ask.”

That is all my parents have ever asked of me, no matter what I have attempted.  As a student, I would walk away from those little conferences wondering if I lied.  Did I really do my best?  Was I proud of those grades?  Or could I have done better?  Could I do better?   Report card after report card went by and I found myself not waiting for Papa to ask the question after the fact.  I asked it to myself first, and what I discovered was when I did my best, I was proud to claim my work.  I wanted people to know I did that.  Yes, that was me!

But it took until I had kids of my own to realize Papa wasn’t asking if I did my best because he expected me to be number one or the best at whatever I did.  Papa was asking because he wanted to make sure I was happy, to make sure I felt fulfilled.  He wanted to make sure I felt I had a purpose – and I did because I was doing my best.

I want that for you.  I want you to be happy, to be proud of yourself, to want to write your name on your efforts so everyone will know it’s you.  No matter how big, I want you to know you have a purpose.

So, do your best, Nateman.  When you go to bed, if you look back on your day, on what you accomplished, on what you put your name on, and you think, ‘I did my best,’ you have succeeded.  If you look back on your day and think, ‘I can do better,’ and go back the next day and do just that, you have succeeded.  Yes, sometimes you will fail spectacularly.  In that failure, there will be pain and embarrassment and second guessing, but if you are open to it, you will learn more about yourself than you can ever imagine.  And when all is said and done, if you can say, ‘I failed, but I did my best,’ you have succeeded.  Because doing your best doesn’t mean being number one or winning the blue ribbon.  It means being true to yourself.

So yes, Grandma Pearl was right.  First impressions are important, but it’s the lasting impression that people will remember, the part of you that sticks around long after you are gone.  If you do your best, you will make a lasting impression to be proud of, and that is the most important impression of all.

And it’s all I ask.

Love you,

Mom