I will not live an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days.
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
~ Dawna Markova
This is the blessing that, at the age of three, you memorized by heart. Standing on your chair at the evening meal you would recite it like a proclamation, a challenge. It made my heart tremble, to see so much passion and power emerging from such a small body.
Your elfin form has grown into a man’s body now, sovereign and in many ways foreign to me. It is hard for me to imagine that you are the same person who shouted blessings from the dinner table in your pajamas. And yet I see the same tenderness in your face and determination in your jaw. I see seeds turning to blossom and only hope I live to see what fruit those blossoms will bear.
What do I say to a young man who is turning eighteen? Do I tell you how much I love you? Do I tell you how proud I am of you? Do I reflect on the steadiness in your eyes or the laughter that seems to spill so easily from your mouth?
Where does the story begin? Is it in the longing that preceded your conception, when I knew deep in my bones that I wanted to be a mother?
Do I tell you that you were conceived in love, intentionally? That the moment your father and I said yes to the possibility of pregnancy, your sweet spirit showed up?
Or do I begin with the infant years, so well documented in photographs, your father and I goofy-eyed with love as we tend your small body. The first steps, the first run, the first climb? How I looked up from my work one morning to find you grinning back at me from the living room ceiling, having shinnied up the radiator pipes, now long gone?
There is so much to tell as I look at you now and see all the selves that shine through your eyes. The two year old obsessed with trumpets and jazz, who could sit through an entire Duke Ellington concert and afterward have the confidence to introduce himself to the band members with “I play the trumpet too.” The three year old so crazy for Tarzan that I sewed brown fabric onto his underwear for a makeshift loincloth so he could swing like his hero from the branches of the back yard cherry tree, now also long gone.
The young boy who found a dead cedar waxwing on the sidewalk, and insisted we have formal prayers and a funeral in that same backyard, the earth moistened with his tears.
The second grader who fell madly, passionately, in love with a fellow second-grader, and was true to that love for two years. In that relationship I saw passion and kindness and loyalty arise in you – qualities that remain though their object has moved on.
It is the bright smile, the tenderness, the willingness to open yourself to others and to new experiences that makes me feel confident that you will not only survive, you will thrive as you move out of the nest and into the world. You know what’s really important. You know yourself, and are willing to learn about the self that is emerging.
You are kind and thoughtful. You’ve got commonsense.
I don’t know what life is going to offer you. I may not be around for much of it. But I know that you were born in love, raised in love, and that you will proceed in love. As I reflect on all the magical moments we captured in photographs over the years, I hope that the joy and delight and passion and reverence with which the young Stuart approached life is something you can carry with you into adulthood. It fits you.
Your name, which both your grandfathers, Stuart Bruce Lytle and Stewart Blair Protzman bore, arose from the royal Scottish Stewarts. Derived from the word “steward,” it implies a thoughtful approach to the shepherding and safeguarding of valuables entrusted to one’s care.
When considering names for you, this concept of stewardship was deeply meaningful for me – especially in light of how as a society we have tended to mismanage our resources, and the implications that has for the future of our planet. To give you a name that carried within it the concept of wise stewardship seemed fitting for a young boy who would come of age in the 21st century, when figuring out how to manage resources will be a critical skill.
So as you move this day into the adult phase of your life, I leave you with these words:
Love. Passion. Stewardship. Allow yourself to follow your heart. Care for your resources – be they love, relationships, or material wealth – wisely. You are, as the midwife said when you were born, an “old soul.” Something is coming through you that is powerful and mysterious.
I am in awe of who you are, and who you are becoming.
Happy Birthday.