Love notes

It’s been over 11years now, it was a wintry afternoon, the snow swallowing around the cyder tree outside, forcing little icicles(冰柱) to form at the tips of the deep green foliage, clinging to the branches.

My older son Steven was at school, and Reed, my husband at work, my three little ones were clustered around the kitchen counter, the table top piled high with crowns and markers. Tom was perfecting a paper airplane, creating his only thickness with stars and stripes. While Sam was down upon a self-portrait. His chapping hands,dry first head then legs, arms sticking out where the body should have been, the children mostly concentrating on their work. Tom occasionally tutoring his younger brother on exactly how to make planes fly in the entire lank if the room.

But Laura, our only daughter, sat quietly in growth of her project. Every once and while, she would ask how to spell the name of someone in our family, then painstakingly formed the letters one by one. Next, she would add flowers, with small green stamps, completed with grass lying on the bottom of the page. She finished off each with the sun in upside at the corner, surrounded by an inch or two blue sky.

Holding them at a “I” level, she let out a long sigh of satisfaction. “What are you making, honey?” I asked. “It’s a surprise.” She said, covering up her work with her hands. Next she taped the top two edges of each sheet of paper together, trying her best to create a cylinder(圆柱). When she had finished, she disappeared upstairs with her treasure. It was not until late that evening that I noticed a mailbox taped onto the doors to each of our bedrooms. There was one for Steve, there was one for Tom. She had not forgotten Sam or baby Paul. For the next few weeks, we received mail on a regular basis. They were little notes confessing her love for each of us. They were short letters full of tiny compliments that a only seven year old would notice. I was in charge of retrieving baby Paul’s letters, pages after pages color things, including flowers with happy faces. “He can’t read yet,” she whispered, “But he can look at the pictures.”

Each time I received one of my little girl’s gifts, it brightened my heart. I was touched how carefully she observed our moods. When Steven lost a baseball game, there was a letter telling him she thought he was the best ballplayer in the whole world. After I had a particularly hard day, there was a message thanking me for my efforts, completed with a smile face tagged near the bottom corner of the page.

This same little girl is grown now, driving off every day to the community college. But something about her has never changed. One afternoon only weeks ago, I found a love note next to my bedside. “Thanks for always being there for me, mom.” It read. “I’m glad with the best friend.” I couldn’t help but remember the precious child. Her smile has bought me countless hours of joy throughout the years. There are angels among us, I know, I live with one.