Dear Melía

This week I'm writing to my girls. Yesterday, I wrote a letter to Ashlyn, our youngest (by 5 minutes). Today it's Melía's turn....


Dear Melía,

You are sweetness in a powerfully tiny package. Your cries of "Hold me, hold me, hold me!" are gifts, even when we already have both hands full. In our less grateful moments Mommy and I mislabel it "clingy," but when we're thinking straight we eat up your cuddliness. I hope you never stop asking us to hold you--even when you are no longer tiny enough that your 24-month-size pants sag on your 26-pound frame.

You are my sharing and caring girl. When you get access to a treat, you make sure that there are two more for Ashlyn and Brielle. You delight in feeding us bites of your food; just don't foget to eat some yourself, little one. This weekend you were on Kleenex duty for Ashlyn, both fetching clean ones and disposing of dirties. You put up a fight when one of your sisters is trying to take a toy by force, but immediately share it when they ask nicely. You even shared the womb, enduring quietly while your zealous twin breakdanced on your head.

You are all about family togetherness. When the car starts and one of the family is not aboard, you protest vigorously, "No! Wait per Mommy!" "Where is Ashlew?" "Where is Bwielle?" "No! Wait per Daddy!" When it's time to go and Ashlyn is lagging behind playing or destroying valuable objects, we ask her (in that distinctively scary tone) if she wants to come with us or stay. You hear the thinly veiled threat to leave her behind, grab her hand and nearly drag her where she needs to be, crying, "Tome on, Ashlew."

You have no time for television. Instead, you are about doing things involving people, organizing things into bags (by a system known only to you), staying busy. You value relationships, and you have already recognized the degree to which TV can starve them. Even eating lacks that personal connection you savor, unless you can talk us into spoon feeding you. And going to sleep is such a bore for a night-owl socialite like you, especially when you can sleep in till 9 on good days.

Despite your meager food intake (excepting anything sweet), you have managed to grow a giant head of hair that is blond, curly mirth. It streams blithely down onto your face, though never enough to hide the impossible blue of your eyes, several sizes larger than your little mug might suggest. And though you are my "mini-Melía," you stand up for yourself enough to allay any fears we may have had of you being a pushover.

You are just now getting mastery of words, and we like the way you take your time growing up. It is a relief to see one of our babies who still reminds us at times of a baby--although if we slip and call you one you ferociously remind us, "I'm not a baby; I'm a bid dirl." And you're right; your potty-training prowess backs up the claim. You love to anticipate turning four. Who knows how many times you've asked, "What tind birday party I doing to have? A Belle party or a Minnie Mouse party?" Whichever answer we give, you say, "Oh," smile in your winning, bigger-than-possible-for-a-face-that-size way, and ask the question again about another ten times.

Your auntie sees a nurse in you, given your empathetic interest in people's owies. Maybe so. But I think your tender, merciful heart will thrive on any pursuit in which you are loving people the way your Heavenly Father intended we all be loved.

I just pray He helps you sense something near how much we love you, little Melía Grace.

Father love, part 4: Affection

Suddenly, she was there. I felt the rough blanket wrapped around her tiny body on my bare forearms, the arms that were all that was holding her six-some pounds in the air--unbelievably. She was still now, breathing in, breathing out, steady in the calm that followed the storm of her emergence. Pinned against my chest, her steady stillness flowed in, swirling with my fear and overcoming it. Her impossibly blue eyes stared straight up into my soul.

It was love at first snuggle.

Since the first time I held my daughter, closeness, affection has been one of the things I most love about daddyhood. If I can hug them, it's all going to be OK. Despite the many flaws that Rachelle and I have, one thing they will not be telling their shrink as they lie on the couch someday is that their parents never hugged them or gave them any affection.

For better and for worse, my little girls have no personal space. Even touchy huggy people like my wife and I feel claustrophobia setting in when we've got three noses and six hands in the middle of our cooking, gift-wrapping, bill-paying, cleaning or writing project. There are moments when we just wish they would find a diversion that doesn't require being within inches of our every move.

But mostly, we like it. I sometimes worry that we like it too much. Tons of us have lived the childhood annoyance of that overly affectionate relative or friend whose expressions of love nearly smothered us. I would like to say that every kiss, squeeze and tickle I gave my kids were an intentional, selfless gift. But more often, I find myself hugging them just because they're so dang hugable. Sometimes the affection I give is for my sake, not for theirs, which strikes me as almost exploitative. Those hugs are probably lost on them, emotionally speaking, while they help me get through the frustrations of parenting and life. Is that OK?

I wonder how often God sends us hugs when we aren't asking for them. We're busy building our block castles, dressing our paper dolls, scribbling drawings that only a parent could love. Suddenly, uninvited, He wraps us in His love, sending a purring cat, a needed email, a familiar scent, a tree silhouetted against the setting sun, a warm breeze, a song lyric, or just the feeling we're not alone.

I am clear that God is infinitely more selfless than I am, and snuggles up to us in these ways more for our sake than for His. But can't the selfless servant-heartedness of God's affection for us peacefully coexist with the fact that He just loves to love us? Does He enjoy giving us the divine equivalent of hugs, even when they're lost on us? Isn't there something to be said for a Father whose expressions of love outshine His children's ability to appreciate them?

I hope so, because right now I feel like sneaking into the sleeping twins' room and kissing the tops of their curly heads--whether they like it or not.

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Questions I'm asking myself:

• How important is it that affection be unselfish? How unselfish should it be?
  
• To what degree is our need to give and receive affection a part of the image of God?