February 14, 2023
My child,
The world celebrates love today. While Valentine’s Day zooms in on romantic love, I’d like you to know about love in its many types, most especially its deepest, unconditional form.
You’ll have love from friends who will treasure you, and make memories with you. It’s the kind of love that will shape you, help you learn more about yourself. It’s a love that every person needs – for we need friends as we traverse the intricacies of life. However, It’s a kind of love that you may outgrow, when someday your interests no longer match. You’ll move on to form new friendships, and experience the pain of broken ties.
You will also learn of love from family, from your siblings or cousins, grandparents – growing up and old together, navigating the every day, every holiday, sharing familial joys or sorrow. It’s the kind that destiny brought you into, for you are born into the family, bonded by blood and not necessarily by choice.
Then there’s the love of country, one that makes you do good for your compatriots; the kind that makes you believe in a better tomorrow for the nation. This will make you question the ways of the world, but I hope you will always have hope within you, especially when justice appears to be scarce.
Then there’s a mother’s love, bestowed by God, one that’s borne from a miracle, one that begins even before you were conceived. It’s the kind of love that’s so vast, even the whole world won’t be able to hold it in. It’s a love that transcends time and space, this lifetime and the next. A love that’s not based on condition; one that nurtures and validates; one that lets you go when needed, but always present. It’s a beautiful kind of love that no word could ever define.
On Valentine’s Day and every day, I want you to be reminded of all the love you deserve, and that you will always, always have your mama.
I love you beyond measure.
Love,
Mama
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