"Jalynna"(Open Letter to my Granddaughter)

Before you were born, I begged for you, I prayed for you, and I loved you. From the very first moment that we shared space, and time, I was in awe of you and your independent spirit. You were barley a few days old when I wrapped you up and placed you on a ring pillow. You didn't like where I placed you, so you kept fussing, fidgeting and squirming around until you got one arm out of your blanket and got where you wanted to be on the pillow. I moved you back to the same place and you kept squirming until you got where you wanted to be again. I just laughed to myself and said, “Oooo your gonna be like your grandmother”.

After your parents were married for 4 years, well if I'm honest, maybe after a year. I started asking about you. Your mom would smile and ignore me for the most part. I knew she was tired of me asking about a grand kid, but I wasn’t about to give up on you. She took her sweet olde time and gave me no hint that she was even trying to have a kid. I remember the Saturday morning that I got the call. Kendra was like, I've got something to tell you and I immediately started screaming. John was just pulling up in the parking lot and I literately drop the phone, ran outside and starting yelled at John across the lot. He thought there was some sort of major emergency in the apartment. He comes running in and I was so excited that I couldn't talk. Finally, I was able to come back to the phone and confirm the news that I had waited 5 years to hear, "mom I'm pregnant."

You were born in the middle of an pandemic. Durning a time when travel was difficult and hospital visit were cut short with limited visitors. I wanted to be there when you were born, but it proved to be impossible so I came to Colorado a few days after you were born.

My Prayer is that you grow up to be an intelligent, beautiful, productive well-adjusted young lady. I pray that you fearlessly go after your hopes & dreams and become all that God has created you to be. I pray that you are able to attend school, the movies. church and go shopping without some crazy person exacting their anger on you and your family and friends. I pray for your children's children. I pray that they are healthy and have good success. I could only imagine how different the world would be as you grow up. I know that I won't always be able to be with you but I am sending my prayers ahead of you to protect you, to provide for you and to make all the crooked places straight. I pray that you develop a relationship with the God that can do exceeding more than we both can ask or think.

I am dreaming about all the vacations and outing that we would attend together. I can see us with our matching outfits, doing photo shoots and mani/pedi. I can hear the laughter on trips and the fun at concerts, amusement parks and zoos. Even though all these things will be fun and exciting, but mostly, I pray that I was able to leave you a legacy that you can be proud of, and able to tell your children about one day.

I wrote this letter to my grand daughter and I'll make it fancy and delivery it to her at the appropriate time. There is very little that we can do to safeguard our children and grandchildren and their future and we can't always be with them to protect them and to help them navigate through life. Sure we can leave them an inheritance but more importantly, we can pray for them constantly and continually. Prayer can reach places that we can't. Somebody prayed for us, let us not neglect praying for the generations to come.