A love letter to my parents

written 02.14.2021

Dear Mom and Dad,

The words ‘thank you’ will never be enough, but I’ll start there, for sure.

Thank you.

My birthday is coming up in the next couple of weeks – the day I took my first breath in this world. With each year, there are many things to be grateful for, including the gift of reflection. From a child, to an adult, to a parent – biology’s virtuous cycle.

With the passing of time, I am increasingly aware of one of life’s best kept secrets: birthdays are really a celebration of and for parents. Our greatest joy, our biggest challenge, and our proudest accomplishment in this life is our children. The day they were born is ours to celebrate.

So this year, the only thing I want for my birthday is for you - Mom and Dad - to feel my love and feel my gratitude for you.

The older I get, the more I appreciate both of you. You chose me. That’s how parenting works – children are born to the parents who created them. And each day I am more and more grateful for you – everything you sacrificed and did for our family. Especially the things I didn’t recognize or fully appreciate at the time….

You offered us a foundation that my siblings and I all took for granted. We didn’t worry about having food on the table. We didn’t worry about having a safe and comfortable roof over our heads. We didn’t worry about having clothes, having access to extracurricular activities, having opportunities and luxuries that many children around the world only ever dream of. You created a space where we could focus on learning because you both knew that learning would be our window to the world, the path to having impact, the foundation to be anything and everything we wanted to be. Wow.

You are both life-long educators – spending your entire careers in service of teaching future generations, including your own children. Your love of and dedication to education – both in your professional and family lives – created this foundation for me to build upon. And I’ll be forever grateful. Life-long learning is the key to change, to progress, to innovation. The education I received in primary school plus the work ethic you exemplified for me, Mom, led me to my studies in engineering. And to me, engineering is a way of thinking. I was drawn to it because I knew from watching you, Dad, that as an Engineer – I could analyze, understand, and solve any complex problem if I put my mind to it.

From the thousands of conversations we must have had, Mom and Dad, to the crazy projects we worked on together as a family on the weekends around the house, in the garden, and in the garage….you also taught me that learning goes way beyond the classroom. Learning is truly a forever-long journey for those who are open to listen, to learn. We will never be finished because there’s always more we can do together, more impact we can collectively have on the world.

The best way I can think to even begin try to give back the gift you have given me is to do everything I can to make this world better – through my children, my family, my life, my work, my voice. Innovate, lead through change, continue to learn, teach my children, strive to be a force for good in this world….so bit-by-bit it’s better than it was the day you brought me into it.

Happy (Rachel’s) birthday, Mom and Dad.

Love you both, to the end of the count.  

Rach

E, A, & R - July 2018 - Anacortes, WA