A Letter for Every Birthday

I'm seventy-nine. I have five grandchildren, ages two to sixteen. This winter, I started a project: I'm writing each of them a letter for every birthday until they turn thirty.

That's a lot of letters. Ninety-one, to be exact. I'm writing them by hand, at my kitchen table, every morning after breakfast. Each one goes in a sealed envelope with a name and a year written on the front.

In each letter, I try to write what I would want to say to them at that age. At ten, I write about the summer I learned to ride a bicycle. At sixteen, I write about my first job at a gas station. At twenty-one, I write about meeting their grandmother at a dance and stepping on her feet. At thirty, I write about what I've learned matters most.

I've put them all in a wooden box in my closet. My daughter knows where it is. This way, whatever happens, they'll hear from me every year. I like that. I like writing them even more. It makes me remember everything.