Educationally speaking

Gay Geiser-Sandoval

This past week, my daughters turned 15 and 18. For the past few years, I

have written them each a letter on their birthday. In this era of instant

communication, we don’t leave much of a permanent record of what we are

thinking or how we feel about each other.

Daily dinner talk tends to center around school assignments,

extracurricular activities, work, or local and political events. I don’t

often tell my children why I find them so enchanting and how I thrill at

each new milestone. So once all of the Christmas stuff is put away, I

start taking stock of what should go in their letters.

It usually takes me a couple of weeks to write them, because I have to

stop and cry a lot at their growing independence. Then I try to make sure

that what I say won’t cause any damage to their teenage psyches.

I hope they will reread my letters on the nights in which stresses in my

life have caused me to lose my temper, even though they didn’t cause it.

I hope that they can use them as a road map for when they have children.

Perhaps, as they gain more of life’s perspective, they will remember

something I did that really bugged them, and make sure to raise their

children differently.

Here I sit at the computer, once again ready to write their letters, but

unable to find the right words. You see, this year is different. I am

about to lose my older daughter.

I know that she was never mine to keep. But, since she mailed off her

college applications, reality is sinking in fast. A yearbook request for

pictures of her when she was a baby and a young girl had me poring

through photo albums. I’ve been reliving all of those precious moments

that seemed like they would last forever.

My younger daughter is analyzing song lyrics as poetry, so she has been

delving deep into the hidden meanings of “The Circle Game” by Joni

Mitchell. Where each day for her still lasts forever, I feel like a month

passes with each blink of my eyes. I just try to savor each of their

daily experiences, and hope that it is cemented firmly in my memory bank.

I plan to regale their children with tales of their youth; of the little

things that are so trivial to them now, that they won’t remember.

This week, I don’t want to analyze why one school got 8 on the API index

and another got 7. I don’t want to talk about crumbling school rooms or

teachers on emergency credentials. I don’t even want to give the teachers

and schools all of the credit for the way my daughters are turning out.

My daughters deserve some credit, too. They are the most important things

in my life. So, girls, know that as you turn into adults, you are

responsible for your own actions. I am so proud that you have taken that

edict so seriously. I can always count on you to be caring, generous,

intelligent, vivacious, honest, and forthright. I know that you will do

the right thing, even if it isn’t always the easiest. As if that isn’t

enough, you are charming, talented, witty and beautiful.

What more could a mom ask for?

* GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column appears every

Tuesday. She can be reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected] f7 .