Dear Robby,
You turned 10 years old a few weeks ago! I cannot believe
that you have already been on this planet for a whole decade. I can remember so
many things about those first ten years and sometimes it seems like just
yesterday you were stumbling around the living room on your chubby little legs
saying, “Bahbo!” (rainbow) at the top of your lungs. It has been a long time
since I sat down and wrote you a letter, so this may be a longer letter than
most.
You had a lot of fun decorating this cake. You used some of
your Star Wars action figures and made the epic battle scene. When we took them
off, fudge icing was stuck all over them and C3PO looked like he pooped all
over himself.
You just finished the 4th grade and it was one of
the best years for you at school in a long time. You are younger than most of
your classmates and that has caused some problems in the past. You’re always a
little bit behind them in social and emotional development. You started riding
the bus to and from school at the end of this year. You were so thrilled that
we finally gave you some independence and freedom. (I cried a little behind the
front door the first few times you went off alone and never looked back.) You
are quicker to anger, quicker to love, quicker to trust and quicker to laugh
than most of them too. Those things have nothing to do with your age. Those are
the McDowell traits that will serve you well and make you special. We won’t
dwell on the other McDowell traits just yet. This year, you seemed to have
closed the age gap a little more. Your second grade teacher, Mr. Johnson, told
us that this would happen in a few years. You started the 4th grade
feeling like a misfit and ended it knowing that who are is not only acceptable,
it’s awesome.
You still love
basketball, Harry Potter, Minecraft and Star Wars. Your imagination is
astounding. You have been taking coronet lessons for just over a year now. You
really have an aptitude for music and I try not to push you too hard for fear
that you will rebel and stop playing. When I take out my clarinet and we play
together are some of the best memories for me this past year. Music has helped
me so much throughout my life and I really love sharing that with you and
seeing things for the first time again through you. You’ve started sharing some
of your favorite music with me too this year. I will play you “Rock Lobster” by
the B52s and then you’ll play me “Sugar” by Maroon 5 and laugh at how I
dance.
So far, 2015 has been a tough year for our family. In
January, Meemaw moved in with us and our normal routines were erased and
replaced with anything but normal. She is so different from Grandma so I was
worried how you two might get along. You’ve had Grandma less than a mile away
for many years now and spend a lot of time at her house on the weekends. Again,
you have surprised me with your unconditional love for Meemaw, even though she
has been nothing like the Grandma you adore. You two have found your own things
in common and have connected. She scratches your back for minutes every night
when you come to hug her goodnight.
One Team went out of business this year. You have been going
to One Team since Kindergarten and this has been a tough transition. You don’t
understand why they stopped being there for you after school and during the
summer. Sometimes adult reasons creep into the world of children where
everything is possible and you always do ”Better Than Your Best”. Your hero,
Coach Amazing, was dealing with these adult realities and some of his frustration
came out as being overly harsh on you. You never told me he was treating you
badly at Winter Camp. Another Coach had to fill me in. Your loyalty to him is
another McDowell trait. It broke my heart to see the realization on your face
that a hero was really only human after all. I am sorry you had to learn this
reality this year too. Never forget that all the coaches talked and agreed that
of all the hundreds of One Team kids over the years, you were their unanimous
favorite.
In school, they showed your class “THE VIDEO” about puberty.
You came home and announced that it was the worst day of your life. You got a
“stupid” booklet and a stick of deodorant. We knew the video was coming and
went to a screening of it months before you saw it. Robby, it was a stupid and
outdated video. Your Dad and I trapped you in the car to have a puberty talk
before you saw it hoping to ease the embarrassment. I drove, you sat behind me
so we could never have eye contact and Dad started in. He would hit the
highlights and then look at me for clues to what he was forgetting. Mouthing
“wet dreams” to your Dad in the Dairy Queen drive-thru is something I will
never forget.
In February, Dad got diagnosed with melanoma and had a large
tumor removed from his foot. It has taken him 5 months to start walking again,
if only on a limited basis. We didn’t tell you that dad had cancer until we got
the results of the lymph node biopsy they did to see if it had spread. We
didn’t know what to tell you. We didn’t want you to worry about something that
we worried about. When the biopsy came back negative, we told you that what
they removed was cancer and that the surgeon had gotten it all out. We told you
everything was going to be fine and tried our best to believe just that.
Since Dad isn’t able to work, I have been working more and
spending less time with you. I have missed our Tuesday afternoons. I learned a
few years back that I have to ask you detailed questions about your day to not
get a “fine” response. You always opened up on those Tuesday afternoons and I
felt connected to your life and what was going on in your world. When we have
talked about me working more now, you have always understood why I wasn’t there,
and I thank you for that. I want you to know that all along though, I knew you
were missing me, scared Dad would die and thinking about how unfair all of this
was. I am thinking all those things too, Robby, but you need someone to tell
you everything is going to be okay and show you how to keep moving forward in
faith. I am trying really hard every day to do just that. I guess only time
will tell if I was successful.
Your music teacher commented on your report card that “Robby
likes to talk. A lot…” She knows you well. You talk to everyone! Your
classmates, our neighbors, the other shoppers in the grocery store, the
mailman, our adult friends, store clerks…it doesn’t matter who you talk to. You
share information and always engage people in conversation. I’m plotting how to
pay you back for telling a city council member how much I love the movie “Fifty
Shades of Grey”. I still think that this quality will help you to be a brilliant
trial attorney some day. Frequently, you just go off on a jag and you are just
talking and not even relaying information or aware that someone else is there
with you. You just talk and talk and talk. This can go as long as 30 minutes at
a time. When you do this with me and realize that I am still in the room and
not listening anymore, you usually stop and say, “I’ll stop talking now. I know
I talk too much, sorry.” Don’t ever stop talking to me, Robby. Talking is how
you share what you think, feel and express love. Your voice is one that I will
always want to hear.
Love,
Mama