A Letter From Dad

Written by Steve Eckberg

Dear Alisha,

Your first year away at college and there is time now for me to reflect on both your being here, and not. A week after we dropped you off at your dorm, mom and I joked about replacing you with a Doberman puppy. The puppy is now six months old, and you've been away from us for half a year. It is quite clear, and always has been, that he could never replace you.

I have a picture on my bookcase in my office. You're about six years old wearing a frilly bright summer dress and a huge bow in your hair. That was probably one of the last times that you wore a frilly summer dress, and definitely the last time that you wore a big bow in your hair. Your smile is dazzling, even with the missing teeth. You're all scrunched up in my arms as I carry you like a precious treasure. I love that picture.

We remember our lives like short film clips. I don't remember who said it, but it seems appropriately hopeful that the sun casts no shadows on the past. While they may not be shadows exactly, I do sometimes worry that I let you grow too big to hold like a treasure. It's not the size of course that is the problem, but the distance. It would be more correct to say that I let you grow too far to hold that way.

Your preciousness though, has lost none of its luster. In fact, if anything it has grown as you have matured and deepened into a complex young woman. I suppose that the crux of my worry in looking back on your childhood is related in a strange way to your value as a person. Not that I could have ever impacted it, but that I taught you to know it. Perhaps more selfishly, that I taught you to know, that I knew it.

Remember a couple of years ago, when mom decided to volunteer helping to place foster kids into permanent homes? She was assigned not one or two, but three very challenging siblings. The two girls were 6 and 7 years old. Their well meaning foster mother was on her own and made no bones about the fact that the girls were too much for her. The boy, only 4

years old, was living in a different home, also temporary. He had a silver tongue and pedestrian-stopping good looks. They were all very bright, but carried bad tempers and a short lifetime of learning how to manipulate people and circumstances to their liking. They could imagine nothing as fearful as what they had already been through, so getting their attention with threats of punishment was out of the question. The fact that each had lived in a least half a dozen homes in the same number of years had trained them to believe that no one really loved them enough to be worth obeying.

But human hope is a stubborn thing. Guarded as it was, the children's hope for love could not be crushed. The test, mom found out, was whether or not an adult would give up on a misbehaving child, or would keep returning in spite of the difficulty. Most gave up.

There were more than a few days I remember coming home from work and finding mom crying. The worst was when she had found out that the little boy was being abused in his foster home. For weeks it had been tearing mom apart to drop the boy off after their outings, as he screamed and cried about not wanting to be left. Finally someone listened and conducted an investigation. The finding of abuse in the home was of small consolation. The boy was removed and placed into the Polanski Center, where he then begged to be returned to the abusive foster parent. That made mom cry even more. God always seems to leave at least one candle lit, however.

Before she even realized what she was saying, mom promised the boy that she was going to find him a loving home with a mom and a dad. The boy stopped mid-sob and looked up at mom, searching for the truth in what she said. "A dad?" he replied. Three days later a young man and his wife fell head over heels in love with the boy and took him home. That was nearly a year ago and just last week the adoption was made official in court. Everyone cried, even the judge.

The two girls meanwhile were feeling more and more comfortable with mom. She took them places they had never been. Although both girls had spent their entire young lives in San Diego, neither had ever been to the beach or the zoo, or a movie theatre. They were playful and enthusiastic, if not perfectly behaved tourists. Mom told me about the time that she decided to drive them around UCSD. The girls sat wide-eyed in the back seat as mom explained that the kids at this school lived on campus. The younger girl, who is exceptionally bright and outgoing, took the lead in peppering mom with questions. Where do they live? Do they feed them? Are they nice to them? Do they have beds? Mom said she would have had to laugh at the questions had it not struck her as sad at how seriously they were asked.

The younger girl, having heard all that she needed to, sat quietly for a minute or so before elbowing her older sister. "That's it, Michelle, we're goin to college."

That was Mom's second promise. "If you want to go to college when you get older, you can, and I will help you."

It seems to me that personal value is a very real and special thing. Yet for some reason, we find it very hard to get our minds and hearts around it. Value is not something that you can earn with good grades or great deeds. While our parents, good or bad, can reveal or hide it from us, they have no power to give it or to take it away. It is something that we are imbued with at our very creation.

It's funny Alisha, I started off praying that you know how much I love you and end up wondering if I really appreciate how much God loves me. I suppose that the image of all 200 pounds-plus of me being God's little treasure does strike me as a bit humorous. But if we're made in his image, it would certainly explain why I feel that way about you.

Postscript;
When we lay in the dark at night, what is it Alisha, that fills our prayers? What does God tell us about who we are? Do we hear him telling us that we are his treasure, and that nothing in the world can replace us? Not even a Doberman?

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