In the midst of 2020 insanity, a few family and friends celebrated Baby Lyvers with a socially distanced, mask-adorned, come-and-go shower in West Virginia. As part of the festivities, guests could fill out a card prompting them with various “wishes for baby.” In the rush of the weekend, Tommy and I didn’t have time to look through the cards. We packed them into a suitcase next to crocheted blankets and footie pajamas and brought them back to Texas. It was weeks before I remembered to unpack them. 

There were sweet cards and funny cards, but one in particular that I found to be so profound that it’s rested on my nightstand through the third trimester of pregnancy. The prompts were filled out by my niece Naomi who is seven-years-old, soaring through second grade, and lately dazzling us with her piano skills. 

Apparently Naomi is a sage as well, as only children can be. My son’s life is still on its first page, but as I read Naomi’s wishes for him, I couldn’t help but feel their implications for me. For all of us. Especially as we approach the final throes of 2020 and enter into the fresh but unknown 2021, her words feel particularly challenging.

1. I hope you become loving.

My son will watch me to know what it means to be loving. The way I speak. The way I care deeply for others. In a world where we’re supposed to stay six feet apart, it can feel so hard to know how to keep loving. So many times this year I’ve felt the temptation to pull inwards, unwilling to see past the rhythms and needs of my own home.

I’m humbled whenever someone takes the time to love me. For whatever reason, I’m often caught off guard, bogged down in that 21^st century mindset of you must “pay to receive.” A friend recently mailed me a book she knew I’d enjoy. Another dropped off Mexican pozole and tostadas on my porch. Love is a thinking-of-you text. It’s the way Tommy pulls me into his arms when I cry. 

I pray my son becomes loving. I pray that I do, too. 

2. I hope you don’t love Satan*.

This is just solid advice. When in doubt, don’t love the greatest purveyor of evil of all time.  

*Given the spelling, there is a chance that Naomi truly meant “satin,” as in – she hopes our baby prefers silk. Either way. 

3. I hope you aren’t afraid to have fun.

If we were seated in an auditorium and a professor solemnly asked, “Who among you is afraid to have fun?” I don’t think any of us would raise a hand. We just assume – oh yeah, I know how to have a good time.

But growing up, I was the shy kid who would rather perish than have my picture taken with Cinderella at the mall. I would pray to turn into a puddle and seep through the cracks in the floor before I would volunteer to be the magician’s onstage assistant. And I can still be that way. Afraid to be a spectacle. 

If 2020 has done nothing else, it’s given my phone and social media accounts plenty of opportunities to remind me what I was up to “this time last year.” It makes me grateful that I paid the $5 to get my picture while riding a longhorn. That I danced with Tommy to some George Strait tune in a crowded honky-tonk. I’m glad I rode the Ferris wheel at Kemah Boardwalk and utterly failed at baking a four-layer birthday cake. Silly, unimportant things. But they become the things worth counting. The moments worth remembering.

I think Naomi’s next wish fits hand in glove – 

4. I hope you laugh loud and proud.

I haven’t laughed nearly enough this year and I feel its absence like the ground might feel the absence of rain. Maybe because I tend to laugh whenever we’re together and this has been the year of apartness. 

I hope my baby grows up laughing loud and proud, whether we’re together or apart, because he can find the joy in everyday things. I hope he sees that in life, sorrow may abound but humor is never far away. They often walk hand-in-hand. 

5. I hope you learn to count.

Learn to count numbers and moments. People and memories. Count what matters most and hold it close. Protect and prioritize it. 

I recently read a letter written by a man to his wife while he was hospitalized and severely ill with COVID-19. If he recovered, he promised to be the man she deserved. He promised to truly follow God, to make his life count. 

But he didn’t come home.

It’s so easy to put life on hold, whether that’s your faith, your relationship with your Creator, your love for family and friends, your dreams and aspirations. At the risk of sounding cliché, those things can’t wait. A garden takes sacrifice, intentionality, dedication. Getting up every day and going to work, but it will die if not tended.

I hope my son learns to cultivate what really matters. I pray that I do, too. I pray that my eyes are looking up at life more often than they’re looking down at a phone.

6. I hope you never forget me.

We cross so many paths in life, one can’t possibly remember every single person they bump into, although I could certainly do a better job recalling names… But I hope I have the good sense to hold close the ones that are meant for remembering. Those friendships or family members – the ones who need me. The ones who should never be let go.  

Don’t worry, Naomi. Bluebird could never forget you. 

7. I hope you respect God.

When trapped in the echo chamber of “modern times,” it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. It’s easy to start thinking of faith as a relic of a past that we have “transcended.” Easy, even, to compartmentalize God into a spiritual therapist – there for a good cry. Or Santa Claus – there to materialize a wish.  

But if we took a moment to observe sunlight play on the edges of tree leaves, or acknowledged the molecular complexity of our own minds and bodies, the brilliance of the earth’s 23.5 degree tip in orbit that sustains our existence – we would see the beauty of the created. We would be in awe of the One who can breathe life into things we can hardly sketch onto paper.

I pray my son never forgets. That he has the common sense to understand that as the created thing, he should respect the Creator. 

Thanks for the reminder, Naomi. 

8. I hope you ignore sadness.

If I could wrap my son up in my arms and ensure that he never experiences pain or sorrow or loss, I would. But I can’t, partly because by taking his sadness, I steal his capacity for joy.

Regardless, I hope he learns to see past the sadness. For all of us, I hope that it never becomes preeminent, that we never feel the shadows are fully eclipsing the light. I pray that you can always see the glimmer of hope beneath the closed door. I pray that life never loses its wonder, the lake water its shimmer, or the moon its mystery.

9. I hope you always love God. 

There’s the linchpin, isn’t it? Because we as humans aren’t just designed to respect God. We are designed to love Him. And loving Christ – loving someone who transcends the ordinary – makes our lives something extraordinary.

I hope my son loves his Creator, primarily because his Creator deserves it, but also because I know that this is where my son will find reason and balance and hope. This is where there is joy and meaning and beauty. 

I’m desperately imperfect, but I’m also whole. I want my son to find the same wholeness. If I carry any wish for him for the rest of my days, that’s it. For him to be whole.

I hope that you…

For all of us (finally) graduating from 2020, may we walk away with a deeper appreciation for the elements of life that can so quickly change – good health and March Madness games and buffet lines.

But perhaps more importantly, a deeper respect for the elements that don’t change – love, family, and friendship, sunrise and sunset. 

Naomi’s wishes for Bluebird are my wishes for you.