An Open Letter to My Son...

I wish people would stop telling you that you're lucky. Over and over, from cops and friends and strangers and people that know you but don't know me, I keep hearing them say how lucky you are. You are not lucky, kiddo.
You deserve to be loved and respected and honored and allowed to make mistakes without getting beaten or ignored or given up on. You deserve hugs and wrestling and sarcasm and faith in the man you're going to become. You deserve second, third, and fourth chances at getting things right. You are 14, which is one of the worst ages to be. You have been tossed around and tossed out of the way, when you should have been put first and in the spotlight. You are brilliant and smart and funny and you don't know any of that.
You are an amazing being and have strength beyond measure. I look at you every day in absolute wonder at how you smile and attack the day and every opportunity it sends your way. By any right, you should be so angry, but you're not angry. You're grateful. And when those people tell you how lucky you are, you agree with them. Yes, you have a chance at life that many kids in your situation don't have, but that doesn't make you lucky. It is something that you and every single one of those kids should have had but didn't. And won't. And I can't help everyone of them, but I can help you. I have the gift of you in my life, and I honor and love you like a child should be. *I* am the lucky one in our family. I get to see you for what you are inside and teach you what you're worth and show you what a real family is and how sometimes, to the most blessed of people, the opportunity to MAKE a family comes along. You are more than your biology. You are standing in the sunshine with a wide-open heart and mind despite every attempt to knock that out of you, and I love you more every day for it.
I can't possibly give you everything you deserve, like all the video game systems, an awesome bike, a car when you're old enough, clothes with good labels, organic produce at every meal, or crazy vacations twice a year. But I can hug you every day. I can tell you that I know how hard you're working to be good. I can be there for every success and every failure and every time you try it again. I can support you and punish you so you can learn about rewards and consequences, and I can show you that love has no conditions. And that THAT is the kind of love you should always have had. I can't fix or take away everything that hurt you, but I can be an endless supply of Band-Aids and peroxide until those things heal a little.
I can take what you already know and adapt it to a new life. I can teach by example even though it changes the way I live my own life. I can put you first and never look back at what I used to be. I can wash and fold and cook and clean and give and take as needed, and I can do all that for you because I WANT to. And you know that. I can be the mom in your life for the rest of mine, and do it thankfully, because I am so very, very lucky to have the chance to do it at all.
You are not lucky. You are a precious, precious gift to the world. And the fact that you have love in your life doesn't make you lucky, it just makes things right.