From Five-Year-Old Amy, To the Amy She Became
Dear big Amy,
I am writing you a letter because I have something important to say and I want to make sure you hear it properly.
I am five. I know how to write some letters, but not all of them yet, so I am going to say this as carefully as I can.
I see you.
I see you being so tired and still getting up anyway, and I want you to know I think that is very brave. I get tired too sometimes, and it is hard to keep going when you are tired, and I am only five, and you have been going for so much longer than me, so I think you are the bravest person I know.
I want to tell you some things about us that I am not sure you remember anymore.
We are kind.
I know you know that, but I do not think you believe it the way I believe it, which is all the way, without any buts after it, just kind, just completely and simply kind, the way the sun is warm, not because it is trying to be but because that is what it is.
That is us. That is what we are.
I want you to stop saying it like it might not be true. It is true. I know it is true because I am five and I have not yet learned to be unsure about it, and I need you to borrow some of my sureness until you find yours again.
I also want to tell you that I used to collect things.
Rocks mostly. The smooth ones. I would put them in my pockets until my pockets were very full and heavy, and Mama would say Amy, why are your pockets full of rocks and I could never explain it properly, but the reason was that I loved them.
I loved that they were smooth. I loved that something had made them smooth by being patient with them for a very long time.
I think you are like a rock, big Amy. I think a lot of things have been pushing against you for a very long time, and I think it has hurt, but I also think you are getting smooth. I think you are getting to the most beautiful part.
I would put you in my pocket. I would carry you everywhere.
I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer honestly because I am five and I do not understand things that are not honest yet.
Did you forget that you were allowed to play?
I am asking because when I watch you, I do not see much play, and play is very important. I know that because I do it every day, and it makes everything better, even the hard days, even the days when things are not fair, and things are not fair sometimes, even when you are five,
But even on those days, I still find something to play with.
A stone. A puddle. A word I like the sound of.
Promise me you will find something to play with. Even a small thing. Even just a word.
I did not know when I was five what the world would do to you.
I did not know about the rooms that would not claim you. I did not know about the bars that kept moving. I did not know about the contracts and the waiting and the smile over the closing door.
But I want to say this:
If I had known, I would have held your hand.
I would have put my small hand in your big hand and not let go.
I would have sat with you in the parking lot mornings. I would have sat with you at two in the morning when the grief was at its largest. I would have sat with you in every room that made you feel like a visitor in your own life.
And I would have said, in my five-year-old voice that did not know yet to be quiet in certain rooms:
This is not right. You belong here. You belong everywhere. You are Amy, and Amy belongs everywhere she goes.
I want you to know that I am proud of you.
I am proud of you for staying kind when unkindness would have been so much easier.
I am proud of you for keeping your ethics even when the cost was very high.
I am proud of you for loving your students the way you love them, all the way, without holding anything back for self-protection, which is a very five-year-old way to love people, and I think it is the best way, even when it hurts.
I am proud of you for crying in the shower. I know that sounds funny, but I am proud of it because it means you let yourself feel, which is a hard thing to keep doing when the world keeps suggesting you should feel less.
I am proud of you for going to the shore.
I am proud of you for writing the poems.
I am proud of you for still being you.
I need to tell you one more thing, and then I have to go because it is almost dinner and we are having something good tonight, and I do not want to miss it.
You are my favourite person.
Not because you are perfect. I know you are not perfect. I am five, and I am not perfect yet, and I think that is okay. I think not perfect is actually more interesting than perfect would be.
You are my favourite person because you are the only one who knows what it feels like to be us, to love this hard and work this hard and care this much and keep going anyway.
Nobody else knows that. Only you.
And I think that is the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard of.
I love you, big Amy.
I loved you before you knew what you would become.
I loved you in the pure, uncomplicated, five-year-old way that does not require you to prove anything, to produce anything, to perform anything.
I loved you just because you were you.
I still do. I always will.
Now go outside. Find a smooth stone. Put it in your pocket.
Remember that something the patient made made it beautiful.
Con todo el amor que sabe dar una niña de cinco años, que es todo el amor que existe.
With all the love a five-year-old knows how to give, which is all the love there is.
Little Amy
Age 5
Keeper of smooth stones
Your very first believer
Translation Note: Spanish phrases in this letter were assisted by Google Translate (translate.google.com). The Spanish is woven in as an act of reclamation, a return to a language of the body and the self that exists beyond institutional English.
