Susan Gorman

Dear Harry,

I am almost done with the sweater I began for you last May. A couple more seams to sew, a collar to put in, and you will be wearing it on the plane when we go visit Nana and Grandad in England. Just for clarification, it is now December, which means that I am definitely not a quick knitter. That in itself is a wonderful gift. I took the time to do something that would actually take time. How often do we allow ourselves the gift of slowness? To do something slowly just for the sake of the pondering pace of it? Our world is so hurried now.

Many times you watched me knitting and asked me, "How many more stitches, Mama?" and I would laugh, because there are probably tens of thousands of stitches in this little sweater. All during this project, I watched you struggle with units of measurement. You can't understand why there are 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour, yet every day at school they're teaching you to count from 1-10, and from 10-20, and up to 100. I hope you never remember the day I sent you to your room for a ten-minute time out (you must have done something really naughty) and you asked me how many seconds that was. When I said "600" the wail of despair you let out broke my heart into a million pieces. 600 seconds versus 10 minutes.

One time you asked me how long until the weekend and when I said, "five more days", you exclaimed, "But that's 80 weeks!!" When you used a five dollar bill to pay for a toy and they gave you change, the fact that you had more actual physical dollars and coins than the one you started out with absolutely delighted you! You could not comprehend you had less money than when you walked in the store.

What I love about how you are right now, as you struggle with measuring is the very fact that you are struggling. I have never seen such a big spirit trying to conform to its human form! I can't tell you how many readings I have done when I heard the guides chuckle over that "how long until.... ?" question. I have coached people in countless channeling circles about how to ask the questions that really give them access to the information they want (Hint: WHEN something happens is the least important piece of information in the spirit world) but I have never seen a /human/ so adorably clueless about how to master the control of amounts. How to quantify his existence. It's usually the guides that have that trouble. With us.

They are trying to help us let go of putting everything into amounts we think we can understand. How good a person am I? How bad will it get? How long will it take? How much will it cost? At this moment, at five and a half years old, you have no idea how to assess any of that for yourself. You just live out of your heart and you love everyone.

Thank you so much, little one. You are showing me how to live in the moment. To just BE. I watch you and I understand that the more time we spend fully absorbed in our lives, the less time we need to know how that living is going. You play, feel, see, and do with such an open heart! You move from experience to experience with a soul full of joy! You look people straight in the eye. You know how to have fun, how to include all your friends in wonderful games. You get lost in imaginary play.

So wear that sweater with the growly dog on it, and know that every stitch is imbued with my hope that you lose little of this part of you as you grow. If that means you're always a little absent-minded, I won't worry. I have so much gratitude for getting to be your Mom and learn from you.

I will never count anything again the same way. Knowing what I know from you, that life can't be measured at all, really. Just lived.