The Red Journal

 

I found this journal a few weeks ago and was incredibly excited! 

This journal began almost 30 years ago with the idea to write at least yearly to our son as he grew up. I started this on his first birthday and was going to give this to him when he either left for college or got married. Whichever one came first.

 

I have not read in over 15 years. 

 

Whoa. 

What?  Seriously.  

 

So, I expected great pearls in these letters I wrote.  Makes loads of sense as I have shelves of journals about decades of experiences. 

 

Then I opened the book.  

 

In the front are pictures of Dallin from year one to year eight. With the dates when each photo was taken. 

 

Darling pictures that immediately make me ooh and aah at the dimples and the hair cuts that were so cool for that time. 

 

I rolled my fingers over each picture with anticipation of what I am going to read and dive into the cursive blue ink on the page.  

First Letter

Dallin, 

Today is your first birthday.  Dad and I can’t believe that you are already one years old. 

All you need is to see a camera and ta-da! You’re smiling!

Happy Birthday! 

Love-  mom

 

I kept going.  Turning pages and reading.  More letters about that first year including about first steps, climbing on everything, haircuts and new cousins. 

 

Joy is everywhere.  Do you sense it? 

 

One year into this journal and I am wondering how I wrote about year two.  So I turn the page.

 

That is what you do, of course. 

Turn the page. 

This year started out with a marvelous bit of news as an almost two year old – that is Dallin – grows into a big kid bed, gets two year old molars and tosses his binkie across the room to be done with it.  

Big kid stuff.

 

Then, I am reading the letter written two months later: 

 

Lots has happened since I last wrote – You learned tons this past while – you drank from a cup without the lid on – you love to run & play. 

 

What is written next makes me quiver.

Two pages about Dallin while he is in the hospital as he fought through his first illness. No more cursive for this letter.  This one is an entry, like I am making notes in a notebook. Facts, details, day by day account of a 9 day stay on the ICU/recovery floors, getting it down for the future. 

 

The P.S. says Smile 🙂

 

Oh, land.  What was going on here!? My mom’s heart breaks for the mom who wrote that letter. 

I know that mom is me and yet this change in the format of the letters is dramatic, as dramatic as the change that happened to Dallin at this time. 

 

Keep breathing.   Keep reading. 

 

I kept reading the journal after the two entries.  Yes!  Back to cursive and signs of recovery, hope and strength.  With hard work being done by everyone in our family. Dallin leading the way.

 

That is also how it goes.  Changes for one person means changes for all. Sounds like a bit of the three musketeers in a way.  All for one and one for all.  

 

As I continued to read through the journal, I found myself getting even more excited to read the letters to Dallin as he started horseback riding, skiing and then school. 

 

He was relearning how to do all the things he lost when he first got sick and there was a letter in this journal about all of it. 

 

What did the letters say when he became a teenager?  There was no stepping around that! As that time came closer I got to read this about the time Dallin was ten years old:

 

Hello, my Dallin! 

I want you to know what a great kid you are! You are growing stronger and bigger and smarter every day!  

You love to help dad do the yard work- you like to help shovel the dirt, push the wheelbarrow and mow the lawn- We got you a basketball standard for outside on Saturday – dad said we could put it up tonight – yeah! 

You are a wonderful boy! I love watching you grow and learn

I love you!  Mom 

 

The moments of becoming more independent and helping before the fun begins is here!

 

As the next couple of years of letters are on the page, I keep turning and turning.  These are the years that we remember and yet the letters bring it back in such detail it’s like I am right back on the driveway with a front row seat watching the ball come out again. 

 

What happens next is a complete surprise.  

 

No more letters

 

There are no more letters. None.  After Dallin is 13 years old, the letters in this journal stop. 

 

I have no memory of not writing in this journal after this point.  

 

In fact, the last entry is about one more cousin being born.  A girl born in May of that year who we spent many hours with.  Dallin loved spending time with this cousin and her brother.  

 

Well, that is true with all of his cousins as a quick side note.  Cousins rule! 

 

I have fanned the pages of this red journal dozens of times in the past few weeks to jog my memory, or try to bounce a reason about why there are no more letters. Nothing, I have not figured it out. 

 

These years from 13 years and moving forward were Dallin’s best years.  When he was in his prime and directing his next steps with eloquence.  Changes are starting with his muscles and new specialists are set to be seen.  

 

Have you done this?  Stopped writing about or doing other things and then you look back with utter and complete disbelief about what could have caused a season at that stopping point? 

The Questions

For the life of me, I cannot recall the cause.  It goes against my very nature to consider that I did this.  What did I miss?  Was there more that I could have forgotten?  What tidbits and gems could have been on the pages in cursive that never will be? 

 

Lands.  

 

I have been writing in journals since I was in junior high.  I really do have a record of what Dallin did every day of his first year. Writing in gratitude journals for over a decade is what I do. 

 

This piece about not writing letters to Dallin for nearly nine years almost stopped me this week.  It will have been almost 18 years since this journal ended.  How can that be? 

 

Gulp. 

 

And yet, if this were someone else telling me what happened, what would I say to them?  

 

Wow, what awesome letters you have in the journal!  The pictures in the front and back are the greatest. What a treasure this must have felt like when you found it!  Imagine the 13 years of details and loveliness you get to look back on now! I am here to feel the sweetness with you. 

 

I can say all of these things to someone else and mean one hundred percent of everything.  When the words are said in my head to myself, I do not fully believe it.  Bizarre.  Or is it? 

 

The question is asked again.  Have you done this?  I can give full support to others but I do not receive it from and for myself at times like this. 

Challenge

Today I challenge myself to change that.  I am choosing to accept that I did the best I could at the time this journal was written, to let the last entry be the great reminder we can allow grace to exist and then to give that to others. 

 

Today, my friends, I am choosing to let myself feel what I wish I would have done, to know that I do not remember every detail of why it could not happen and then, by gosh by golly, listen to my own advice.  What a treasure it is to have found this red journal. 

 

Truly.

 

What is a treasure you have in your life today, my friends?  Big or small, at the beginning or complete.  May it be yours today.