Perhaps even I have given you advice you didn't ask for.
Forgive me for that.
Grandparents sometimes confuse wanting to protect someone with knowing what is best for them.
But ultimately, this is your life.
You are the one who has to wake up inside it every morning.
Don't spend decades performing a version of success that makes everyone happy except you.
Your life does not have to resemble mine.
It doesn't have to resemble your parents' lives.
There is no single correct timeline for becoming who you are.
You may change careers.
Move somewhere unexpected.
Begin again at forty.
Fall in love later than your friends.
Choose a path nobody in our family understands at first.
I hope you have enough courage to listen to good advice without surrendering your own voice.
I did not watch you grow so you could become a copy of us.
I want to see who you become when you are fully yourself.
I Hope You Understand Why I Sometimes Look at You the Way I Do
Perhaps you have noticed it.
Sometimes at a family dinner, I become quiet for a moment and just look around.
There you all are.
Talking.
Laughing.
Someone is interrupting somebody else.
A child is asking for something.
Plates are being passed around.
Nobody else thinks anything unusual is happening.
But occasionally, I see the whole thing differently.
I see years.
I remember holding your parent when they were the size of the little child now running through the room.
I remember people who once sat at our table and are no longer here.
I remember versions of myself that you never knew.
Then I look at you.
And suddenly I understand that life has continued far beyond the part I thought belonged to me.
That feeling is difficult to describe.
It is pride.
It is gratitude.
It is a little bit of sadness.
And it is wonder.
Because there are moments when I recognize something familiar in you.
Maybe you laugh like someone.
Maybe you have your mother's patience.
Maybe you inherited your grandfather's ridiculous sense of humor.
Maybe the way you take care of people reminds me of someone you never even met.
That is when I realize:
Love has a longer life than any one person.
I Hope You Know What You Have Given Me Too
Grandparents talk a lot about what we hope to teach our grandchildren.
But you have taught me things too.
You showed me that the world keeps changing after we think we understand it.
You introduced me to things I never would have discovered.
You made me reconsider old assumptions.
You made me laugh at myself.
You gave me reasons to look forward.
You allowed me to experience childhood again from a completely different seat.
And perhaps most importantly, you gave me the privilege of watching someone I loved become someone I admire.
Those are not the same thing.
Love came first.
Admiration came as I watched your choices.
So when I tell you I am proud of you, please know that I am not simply saying what grandparents are expected to say.
I have been watching.
I have noticed.