I have been asked by a few people to share the letter we read to our girls every year on the first day of school. I had a friend share this idea with me and I just had to implement it into our routine. I am sure we each can think of someone from our past that we wish we would have handled differently. I desire to see my girls learn this lesson earlier in life than I did.
Warning! I CANNOT read this letter without crying, does it have to do with the girls getting older or starting school? NO! Surprisingly, this year I was perfectly calm and ready to take on the day... UNTIL I read this to them. Don't even know why I put makeup on before reading it. You would think over the last couple years I would have learned my lesson but apparently I forget. Every. Year.
(I did change the name of the little girl from my school because she has a very distinct spelling.)
SOOOOO... without further blabbing. Enjoy this little piece of Ramirez Clan Tradition.
Hey, Sweetheart
Today is a big day! I can’t believe it is already time for you to start 4th grade!
Lei – When I was in elementary school, there was a little girl in my class named Jane.
Jane looked a little different and she wore funny clothes and sometimes she even smelled a little bit. Jane didn’t smile. She hung her head low and she never looked at anyone at all. Jane never did her homework. I don’t think her parents reminded her like yours do. The other kids teased Jane a lot. Whenever they did, her head hung lower and lower and lower. I never teased her, but I never told the other kids to stop, either.
And I never talked to Jane, not once. I never invited her to sit next to me at lunch, or to play with me at recess. Instead, she sat and played by herself. She must have been very lonely.
I still think about Jane often. I wonder if she remembers me. Probably not. I bet if I’d asked her to play, just once, she’d still remember me.
I think that God puts people in our lives as gifts to us. The children in your class this year, they are some of God’s gifts to you.
So please treat each one like a gift from God. Every single one.
Baby, if you see a child being left out, or hurt, or teased, a part of your heart will hurt a little. Your daddy and I want you to trust that heart- ache. Your whole life, we want you to notice and trust your heart-ache. That heart ache is called compassion, and it is God’s signal to you to do something. It is God saying, LEILA! Wake up! One of my babies is hurting! Do something to help! Whenever you feel compassion – be thrilled! It means God is speaking to you, and that is magic. It means He trusts you and needs you.
Sometimes the magic of compassion will make you step into the middle of a bad situation right away.
Compassion might lead you to tell a teaser to stop it and then ask the teased kid to play. You might invite a left-out kid to sit next to you at lunch. You might choose a kid for your team first who usually gets chosen last. These things will be hard to do, but you can do hard things.
Sometimes you will feel compassion but you won’t step in right away. That’s okay, too. You might choose instead to tell your teacher and then tell us. We are on your team – we are on your whole class’s team. Asking for help for someone who is hurting is not tattling, it is doing the right thing. If someone in your class needs help, please tell me, baby. We will make a plan to help together.
When God speaks to you by making your heart hurt for another, by giving you compassion, just do something. Please do not ignore God whispering to you. I so wish I had not ignored God when He spoke to me about Jane. I remember Him trying, I remember feeling compassion, but I chose fear over compassion. I wish I hadn’t. Jane could have used a friend and I could have, too.
Leila – We do not care if you are the smartest or fastest or coolest or funniest. There will be lots of contests at school, and we don’t care if you win a single one of them. We don’t care if you get straight As. We don’t care if the girls think you’re cute or whether you’re picked first or last for kickball at recess. We don’t care if you are your teacher’s favorite or not. We don’t care if you have the best clothes or most American Girl Dolls or coolest electronics. We just don’t care.
We don’t send you to school to become the best at anything at all. We already love you as much as we possibly could. You do not have to earn our love or pride and you can’t lose it. That’s done.
We send you to school to practice being brave and kind.
Kind people are brave people. Brave is not a feeling that you should wait for. It is a decision. It is a decision that compassion is more important than fear, than fitting in, than following the crowd.
Trust me, baby, it is. It is more important.
Don’t try to be the best this year, honey.
Just be grateful and kind and brave. That’s all you ever need to be.
Take care of those classmates of yours, and your teacher, too. You Belong to Each Other. You are one blessed girl . . . with all of these new gifts to unwrap this year.
I love you so much that my heart might explode.
Enjoy and cherish your gifts.
And thank you for being my favorite gift of all time.
Love,
Mommy
Mommy
