My Birth Daughter's Annual Birthday Letter by Terri Rimmer

August 4, 2018

Dear McKenna:

I can’t believe I have a birth daughter who’s going to be 18 on August 15th!

When I think about the year 2000, it really doesn’t seem that long ago.

This has been quite a year for you – another incredible dance recital that I got to attend, getting contacts, perseverance that knows no limits, lots of achievements in your life.

You continue to amaze and inspire me with your bravery and limitless strength.

I’m so glad you got to meet my sister Cindy this year, something I’d dreamed about since the day you were born. She talked to you when she came to visit me one week before I had you. I wanted you two to meet since the day I found out I was pregnant.

The other night the movie “Flashdance” was on and if you hadn’t seen it you will probably crack up at the dance moves and 80s cliches. But when it came out the summer I was 17 it was all the rage. It’s about a dancer pursuing her dream. When it was on the other night I thought of you and how much you love dance. When I watched you dance in your recital this year to the hip-hop routine, as soon as you came out on stage you just seemed to light up. You were so great!

And in the lyrical routine I could tell that you were feeling the music and saw how you put everything into the dance. I was so impressed with how talented you are as I always am.

I have dreams about you frequently and I’m always wanting to take away your pain and protect you from anyone that will or could hurt you.

To tell you a little of your history that I just found out about:

When my grandma was nine she surprised her brother by baking biscuits one day when he came to surprise her with a visit.

He told her, “Those are the lightest, smallest biscuits I ever ate!”

My great-grandma was a great storyteller, like you.

I was close to my grandpa who had a watermelon patch. My sisters and cousins and I would sit at the picnic table in our grandparents’ back yard when we were little and eat the watermelon slices, letting the juice run down our neck.

I remember when I was getting ready to start my senior year of high school like you’re doing. I was going into a new high school for the fourth time but it was also my sister’s Cindy’s school that she graduated from – North Cobb High. It was an exciting time because I knew I would be going off to college after that and your senior year is always so memorable.

Despite the fact that I had to get to know some new people I did make some good friends like Kim, who became my best friend and who I was friends with all through college, Suzanne, another close friend who lived down the street from me and who I went horseback riding with twice since her family owned horses, and Melody, who was totally responsible for me graduating from high school. She helped me pass my American Government final by helping me cram all Memorial Day weekend. She was an honors student. She also took me under her wing and I spent time with her family, going to church with them a few times.

Kim taught me the proper way to dress up, put on makeup, style my hair, and I spent several nights at her house. She and I used to lay out in the sun and look at magazines, listening to the radio or sometimes we’d go to the local mountains and have a picnic. She became my best friend and we’d confide all kinds of things to each other. We went to movies, lunch, dinner, double dated, church – and graduated together. I still have the picture of the two of us in our white caps and gowns.

My sister Cindy met her best friend Lindi who she’s still friends with when she transferred to North Cobb High during her junior year but at the time she transferred, she was so nervous. Those two did some funny things together like take a mannequin to the prom one year since they didn’t have a date – in a convertible! To this day they still embark on unique adventures.

I’m so glad you have a best friend in Scarlett and great parents in Vicki and Larry as well as your skating rink friends and other friends.

I hope your 18th birthday and your senior year are full of great times, fantastic memories, and wonderful opportunities for you.

Love,
Terri
COPYRIGHT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

McKenna's Annual Thanksgiving Letter

Nov. 22, 2018 Dear McKenna: Eighteen years ago I sat down to write your very first Thanksgiving letter when I was 34 years old and you were spending your first Thanksgiving with your mom and dad. I was working as a data entry operator, living with a roommate, the re-make of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” with Jim Carey just came out, and I had a Tonkinese cat named Chaplin and a mutt, Ripley who charmed everyone. I remember when I sat down to write that letter at my roommate’s computer looking out at his French door windows at his back yard and all the emotions I was feeling at the time – imagining you with your family at Thanksgiving, happy that you were safe and warm in your new home, content that I had made the right decision, and thankful that I could sit down and type those words to you. I had always promised myself that every birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas I would sit down and write a letter to you and though I missed a couple, which I reg
Read more

51 to 15

Image
By Terri Rimmer He told me he really missed me and could I come see him for Christmas in one of the home towns I lived in, Smyrna, Georgia. My heart sank as I knew I had to work and it was our busiest season, though I still wanted to see him as I told him New Year’s Eve weekend might be a possibility. For the first time I didn’t have any travel anxiety as many times as I’ve traveled, which was nice. I had a dream before I left that I got off the plane and there he was, hugging me tight and not letting go. I didn’t have any nightmares like I usually do before I make my yearly birthday trip. I have had nightmares every night since I was three. This “he” I speak of is Terry, one of my former foster fathers, a lifetime Church of Christ member who I’ve kept in touch with since the 80s. My foster mom, Peggy passed away in 1983. Terry got remarried in 1988 to a woman named Ann, also a lifelong Church of Christ member. Terry graduated from high school in 1968, having
Read more

Why New Year’s Eve is Hard for Me By Terri Rimmer

I used to love New Year’s Eve. The partying, drinking, fanfare, the festivities, all the celebration in the air, the nights leading up to the big evening, and, of course, the big countdown. But now those three words, New Year’s Eve bring with it a crushing blow to the heart, mind, and spirit. I can’t even stand to hear them and it was only in the past two years was I able to utter them to people or respond back to people those same words when they would wish them upon me on the celebratory evening when the world celebrates as normal people do. What changed? On New Year’s Eve 2005 my boyfriend of two years, Ruben, died of liver cancer at the age of 53, only two months after being diagnosed. Then on New Year’s Eve 2008 my dad, who I had been estranged from for 20 years, but who I had just started talking to again through email three months before he died, passed away. Needless to say, I have hated the holiday ever since. I never got to say good-bye to Ruben because his dea
Read more