To Jim on His 10th Birthday

Jim,

Time is a strange thing right now. As we celebrate your birthday, we have been sheltering in place for 7 or 8 weeks and the days kind of blur together. The weeks simultaneously fly by and seem to stretch on for eons. So the attempt to convey what it feels like for you to be 10 years old seems odd. Yet as I write this down, it feels all too appropriate. Because it seems like your first decade with us started moments ago and it also feels like you’ve always been here.

I can still remember sleeping on a hospital couch as we waited for you to be born and holding you for the first time. I can close my eyes and picture the radiant May morning when we brought you home with “Strawberry Swing” playing over the stereo and the world feeling like it was nothing but infinite possibility. And I find it hard to believe that beautiful baby boy has now hit double digits.

Yet you are 10 and we’ve seen the tell-tale signs of growing up in the last few months. You’ve gotten a little bit taller. It’s getting a little bit more difficult to heft you up to hug you like I used to. And then we gave you a quarantine buzzcut and you seemed to immediately age a couple of years in minutes. Part of me wants to pump the brakes on it. You can’t really play tug-of-war with time though I know many a parent has tried.

Your mom and I are so fiercely proud of you. You are kind, sensitive, intelligent, and imaginative. I love that you are a voracious reader, that you have your mom’s intense sense of justice (though that can sometimes be a pain in the body of a kid because life is not ever fair). You have definitely inherited my pop culture tastes: you wanted to watch the original Star Wars for your birthday and have spent the last several weeks devouring the Superman and Justice League graphic novels I bring to you.

I love how good you are at asking questions and that you think of yourself as a thinker (that’s a line from your fourth grade speech and you were so proud of it). You want to know how the world works and you also love to think about how it could function in different ways. You wear your heart on your sleeve and it’s a very big heart. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with the enormity of your feelings, but I am so thankful that you know you can express them.

You are in the midst of some truly interesting times of your life. Not only are we in this strange season caused by a worldwide pandemic, but it has taken away your final months of elementary school. So we will at some point be entering into this brand new chapter without the current one truly getting a full closing. Next year you are going to be a middle schooler. And, yes, I still think it is insane that 5th graders are middle schoolers in Nashville public schools and I will always think that. This time next year, you’ll be finishing Disciples class and preparing to enter the youth group. I do not even know how to begin processing that reality.

So always remember this:

You are loved.

I know I write that probably every year and it is always true. You are loved more than that great imagination of yours can fathom: by God, by your mom and I, by family, friends, and so many others. You are loved and you always be.

Remembering that is going to become more and more important as you grow up. You do not have to be cool. You do not have to be the top of your class. You do not have to be a star athlete. You do not have to fit into some kind of box. You do not have to be popular. Do we want you to try your best? Of course. We want you to push yourself and become the best version of Jim you can. But you are always going to be loved, always going to be worthy of love, and nothing is ever going to change that. And the people that you encounter? They are always going to be worthy of love too. Remember that because I think we forget it as we grow older and the world needs empathetic people now more than ever.

I am excited and a little nervous to see what happens next. Ten years after that bright morning in May, you are still a world of infinite possibility. This next decade is going to throw a lot of twists and turns at you. There will be joys and growing pains. I hope and pray that you will continue to find the great and amazing person that God has made you to be. I hope that you will be brave and kind. I hope you will try and try again even when you fail. You are so dearly loved and we are here for you. Happy Birthday Jim! I am so grateful that I get to be your dad.

Love,
Diddy