Making a Memory

What started at the beginning of the school year as a happy accident has turned into a daily practice between my daughter and me. My daughter drives herself to school and one morning not long after she had left for school I heard several sirens going off and became alarmed that something had happened to my daughter. I decided that day that a text after she arrived each day would put my mind at ease and my daughter agreed.

The first few mornings she would text “I’m here” and I would text back “Ok”. One morning my daughter texted “At the educational facility”, so trying to be funny and quirky back, I wrote “Try to persevere through the day”. That night when she arrived home, she went on and on about how inspiring that was and how her friends thought it was so cool. I told her that there was nothing inspiring about “persevere”, it is just a fancy word for, “try to make it”. None the less she liked it, so I thought to myself, what if I really did try to inspire her… so an idea was born.

Each day when she lets me know she is has arrived at school I respond back with various quotes such as, “Remember you have to believe it to achieve it!” or a quote from Yoda of Star Wars fame “Always pass on what you learn”. Other pearls of wisdom include “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you sow” by Robert Louis Stevenson. There is also this quote that apparently shocked my daughter “Some people walk into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts. Others walk into our lives and we want to leave footprints on their face”. Basically each day is a new quote, some inspiring and some just silly, but my daughter likes it and it keeps us connected, which is a plus.

I am just happy that what started as something so simple and meaningless turned into something that is meaningful for my daughter and me. That is how life works though isn’t it? We will work so hard trying to make a memory and it basically goes undetected, but one random moment when you least expect it you make a memory that will last a lifetime. I will leave you with today’s quote, because somehow I think it works…

“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives”  -Tony Robbins