Dear Son,

Yesterday you lathered Old Spice body wash over your tiny frame and asked me, “Mama do I smell like men?”

Today you are 4 years old.

I thank the Creator that I am your Mama, and that you are my son. I thank the Creator for each and every person that has been part of our journey: Abba, Nana, Nani, Dadi, Dadu, Mamu, Chachu, and the generations that came before us, and that will proceed us.

I am grateful for your kindness to me, how you always notice my tears, and how you kiss me on the lips. I am grateful that you let me dress you in dress shirts and khakis, even though that’s not how boys your age dress. I am grateful that you help me find my phone and watch, which I seem to lose at least once a day.

I am grateful for how you talk, how you move, how you eat, and poop. I am grateful for all the things that make you you.

I am grateful that you are there for your big sister to play with/ fight with. She needed someone just like you. You help us all be a little more brave. You remind me to be more gentle.

You make me cry and laugh in the same breath. You walk into walls that you insist were not there. You jump into pools without knowing how to swim. You keep me younger than I feel.

I left a corporate career when you were born. I could not fathom missing all the things of childhood to write strategy papers. But now that you are getting older, I know that I cannot watch everything change around me, without actively changing myself and adapting to the signals around us.

You were 2 when the pandemic started.

Half your life has been during this global pandemic.

Despite that, in two years you have been to:

1. Mecca
2. Medina
3. Pheonix, Arizona
4. Sedona, Arizona
5. Orlando, Florida (Multiple times)
6. Addis Ababa
7. Upstate New York
8. New York City (Multiple times)
9. Delaware

What a list! You’ve rolled around the airport floor, eaten things between the seats when I wasn’t looking, and still your digestion seems intact. It’s a miracle! Even if we only travel in our imaginations, I will be happy to go with you.

Here are some thing I’d like you to remember:

1. When you grow up you want to be an engineer like your Mamu.
2. You have taken apart pretty much every electric thing I have– baby monitors, tv remotes, etc.
3. You love magnets.
4. You love your Star Walk on your iPad.
5. You eat with both hands.
6. Your favorite gift was the electric bike, and we hope to get a new battery for it.
7. You wear a green dinosaur book bag to co-op.
8. You like to carry your sister’s lunchbox.
9. You loved going to the farm class, picking up bugs and holding chickens.
10. You Abba has taken you all over the world.

May God protect you, bless you, and keep you close. Ameen.