Sunday, May 9, 2010

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Today was a good day -- time spent with my kids, with my mom, with friends.

My hands still smell smokey from our last Mother's Day tradition of the day -- we burned the notes the girls wrote their birth mothers, so that the smoke could carry their thoughts and wishes to China. They each read their notes solemnly before consigning them to the fire. Maya's note read:

Dear Birth Mother,

Happy Mother's Day!  Are you having a good day in China?  I love you!

Love, Maya
Zoe's note read:
Dear Birth Mother,

Happy Mother's Day! Do you miss me? I miss you. I think of you every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year. I can never stop thinking of you.

Love, Zoe
When I teared up, I could blame it on the smoke getting in my eyes.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I proposed this tradition to my kids and they thought it was a fine idea so they each wrote a note and stuck it in a red envelope. We proceeded to try to burn them and they wouldn't catch on fire! Eventually lit a candle in the fire place and held them over the flame until they burned. (First time ever using the fire place, too.) I think that the kids may have been more interested in the fire than the notes, but I think it is a neat way to honor birth mothers on mother's day. Next time we'll have to use more flammable red envelopes!
Sue (aka anonymous)

malinda said...

Sue, we had the same problem the first time -- now, we make tears in the red envelopes and stick a piece of twisted paper through the tear, and light the paper. Once the notes on the inside start to burn, the envelopes do, too! Maybe we'll try the candle trick next time.

harriet glynn said...

Wow smoke just got in my eyes. "Every second of every day..." I'm sure that's not actually a fact but it's a telling moment. Sigh...