He lays his head on the pillow beside me and I make a silent mental note: Keep an early bedtime if you want to reserve an hour of magical conversation with your kids. 

I throw my book on the floor and stare at him as he screams back at the invisible Frank Sinatra who sings in his head.  

His voice, deep and crooning, betrays his child-like dimples. 

I prayed to God that you’d never lose those dimples.

It’s a little mantra I’ve found myself saying every time I notice his dimples, a reminder, I wonder, that maybe there is still a God in the universe.

He’s almost 16, this last baby of mine, and the older he gets, the more I see reflections of us inside of him. 

US 

>>His dad, so steady and loyal – always the one who will do the right thing even when the right thing sucks 

>>His mom, so flitting between worlds – the one who often breaks out in screaming melodies of her own simply because she cannot keep the music locked inside her head for one more second

We have nurtured this child, poured every ounce of our best selves into him, prayed over him before he was even born, breathed hope into his every step, unleashed our fury towards anything that got into his way – and now, he reflects all of that effort back towards us, like a carnival mirror of twists and turns. 

We sometimes see ourselves. And yet, the object of our reflection has somehow managed to grow its own beating heart.  

His mind carries our cells, yet he thinks on his own. 

His heart echoes our rhythm, yet it beats on its own. 

His eyes color with our pigment, yet they see on their own. 

Congratulations, Lindsay, you have given him all the makings of a human being, colored in the outline of his soul and baptized him in the waters of goodness and forgiveness and unrelenting grace. 

And even still, his story has become his own. 

You don’t get to write or turn or even bookmark all the pages. 

You’re merely the catalyst, the first draft, the breath that started it all. 

I recently sat down with two of my clients to see how our work together impacted their business. You can read all about it here.