To my daughter, the week she graduates from high school

My dear one,

This week has been full of conversations of the operational variety - the day's agenda, the evening's events, do you have all the pictures ready for the board for your party, have you hung up your robe to get the wrinkles out, have you cleaned your room.

You're the kid who knows your mother well, so I'm sure you know by now that's all a ruse to keep me from completely opening the floodgates. On Sunday, you will graduate, and in a few weeks, you will be gone for the summer. You'll be back to pick up your stuff, and then you'll be gone. No, your college isn't miles and hours away, but it will be different. You're leaving the nest, or to your way of thinking, flying the coop. You have gone from spirited toddler to quirky youngster to purpose-driven woman in what has felt like seconds. Considering that you're almost 18 literally took my breath away this morning.

I had always read that it takes about six months to get pregnant once you start trying. I don't know who came up with it, but whoever did is full of it. I was pregnant with you in about six minutes.True to form, you arrived two weeks early. You have proven each day since then that you would play by your own rules, follow your own agenda and march to your own drummer. That's one of the things I love best about you.

I don't think I have ever told you the guilt I felt at times when I was carrying you. Your brother was diagnosed with cancer just a few months after we learned we were having you. You as the life growing inside of me took a back seat to doing everything I could to keep my other child alive. For a while, my pregnancy felt like more of a medical condition that I was managing than a joy and wonder-filled process as my body went through weekly changes.

Still, I remember times when, in the late evening or the pre-dawn hours, as the hospital monitors swooshed and beeped, I would feel you move inside me. It was during those moments when I felt I could hope for the future when every inch of me was fighting from giving in to hopelessness and despair. That's one of the best ways I can describe you - you have been an affirming ray of light that came into my life at one of the darkest times I can imagine and went on to make it a daily mission to let your light shine.

I hope you remember that on days when you feel like you're still in the back seat. Days when it seems others are managing their relationships, their surroundings, their circumstances with ease, and days when it feels like it's a struggle and you're not enough. But sweet girl, you have owned your challenges and blazed your trail, and you are so far in the front seat that I feel like there are some days you could be the hood ornament.

Life isn't easy, and you know that. There's a lot I haven't had a chance to teach you yet, but to be honest, even more of it is on-the-job training, and there's no good way to prep you for it, other than tell you to jump in feet-first. You have the virtues we and others have tried to teach you: faith, perseverance, kindness, respect, compassion, empathy and generosity. And the strength to open a can of whoop-ass when it's warranted, along with the wisdom to know when and how that's appropriate. Serving others is important, but you also need to be the leading lady of your own life. Don't ever, ever let anyone tell you you're not good enough, strong enough or worthy. You are.

I need to tell you that life with you has delivered me with more joy-filled moments of wonder than I ever could have imagined when I was pregnant. The quiet intelligence in your blue eyes. The detailed, zany stories that effortlessly flowed from your imagination when you were little. The music that seems to surround your being, even on the rare occasions when you're not singing. The inner strength that is so evident, no matter what the circumstances. The endless well of compassion you dip into so generously with others. That affirming ray of light that you continue to bring to this world.

You are my joy, my hope, my promise, my light. I love you, I'm so very proud of you, and I can't wait to see what you do next.

Go get 'em.