"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy."
"A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for."
"A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for."
First born. Curious. Highly intelligent. Compliant. Naturally spiritually attuned. Musical. Very kind. Honest. Trusted. Brave. Gentle. Loving. Demonstrative.
I could go quote-and-thesaurus-plucking all day and it would be a pleasure for me to find so many of them confirming what I already know about you. Your beautiful eyes. My 26 hour labor with you where, for a moment, your little heart stopped beating and our nurse rightfully took no thought of my comfort and began briskly massaging my huge tummy to wake up that little heart. Finding just the right name for you. Holding you for the first time in my arms. Watching you spend hours with your crafts. Your caring for, and bossing around Aubrey -- your best friend for the first many years of your life. Backyard swings. Your stitches and other childhood injuries. Little Tykes toys. First day of school and my weeping for 2 weeks each year that I dropped you off on that first school day. Your very young otherworldly spiritual queries that often confounded your father and I. Your private contemplative moments in the green belt. Saving Aubrey from drowning. Piano lessons. Harp lessons. Shyness. School band. Watching you manage your life's challenges. Your loving the scriptures. Outstanding grades. Flying through your youthful academic interests from entomologist to ornithologist to poet to science major/Spanish minor to eternally majoring in marriage to a terrific guy named Jake. I could go on and on.
Years ago I dreamed of the sort of child I some day hoped to have. In 1991 that dream began to take shape and root in a nearly 10-lb. baby girl we named Hahna Kirsten Danz. I looked into your most innocent gaze, and my gosh, how I loved you. Something buried deep inside me gushed out to help my old self become a renewed better self: at that unguarded moment I knew that it was all about love. A love I'd never known until that instant. Mother love. Baby love. No no. This was Divine Love. A love like God's: sweet, unconditional and infinite. In that proverbial 'twinkling of an eye' I was was transformed and never desired to go back. And it was all because of a little baby girl named Hahna. I'd take you in my baby backpack and we'd go on hikes in our special place in the city away from the concrete and crowds (Pierce College Agricultural Farm) where cows and pigs fascinated you --- it was our oasis -- where the hills and trees and ponds we tarried through planted the seeds within you to develop into your lifelong love of God's natural creations. I'd dress you up and walk you in the stroller everywhere. I'd sing to you, read to you, color with you, paint with you, talk with you, watch Sesame Street with you, eat breakfast and lunch with you. I treasured and protected the unconditional love I felt from you. It felt so safe. So divine. It was amazing to be able to gaze into the eyes of such a little human being and feel such unconditional trust, such acceptance, and such love, that I never wanted you to grow up. And yet you did. And during each phase, I continued to experience that sweet unconditional love, and I cherished the little person you were and the one you were becoming, and never wanted you to grow up beyond that. Yet you did. I couldn't help but love you more each day, as I watched you wrap your heart and head around everything you reached for and everything that we brought to you --- from this world and from your Heavenly Father, to shape your life as the playdoh spaghetti you formed with your little hands. Our days were perfect. But too short. I knew that there was so much more to be embraced by those tiny hands. And so it was.
Growing up gave rise to a continued love for, and from, you, which became always fully present and in the moment, as well as continually maturing and becoming richer. You would often sit out in the green belt by the black oak to be alone. Your were amazed at the difference your glasses made upon seeing the leaves on the trees in detail and thinking that everyone's gaze must be blurred. During those challenging middle school and high school years you were formidably optimistic and kind, even through some emotional times. You'd stroll up to the water's edge, find the waves of your life too choppy, and wander back to where your family and a loving Heavenly Father could provide you comfort and strength --- only to re-fortify you for another day.
Your first job at La Comida. Then Mountain Mike's. Then that survey place. Then as a classroom aide. EFY. As Ben's homecoming escort. Prom. Coldplay. Your shyness. Your poise. Your beauty. Your driver's license. You and Nikki. Your senior project. Your hike up Half Dome with dad. All the boys who suddenly found you interesting once you graduated (remember your b-day dinner at Mtn. Mike's when you were surrounded by only a dozen guys? haha. Who wouldathunk? :) Your surprise scholarship! Your BYU experience and being blessed with great roommates. Your piano and harp playing that filled our home with tangible comfort (sniff. I miss it.). Your ever-growing spirituality. Your marriage to that wonderful boy of yours. Your fun wedding, reception, and honeymoon! At each threshold of your life, you've been poised to enthusiastically leap to the next level. You're fearless.
Lest I be accused of over-romanticizing my memories of my firstborn, I shall share the following: yes, you were a perfectly compliant and good-natured child ... and even when adolescence struck you were never prone to disobedience. And what for most parents would have been no big deal, came as a surprise to me as a slight twinge of stubborness and independence kicked in after you turned 18. In testing your independence, your newly-arrived-adult-self opted out of my suggestions on what to do with your time and talents during your precious summer breaks, and my recommendations on how to constructively spend some of your time found no fertile soil in this new Hahna: I had recommended you use your harp talents to play for hospice patients, use your spare time to engage in meaningful service, look for another job to add to your 12-15 hour-per-week job and too much free time, practice your talents so you don't lose them (doesn't your patriarchal blessing say something about that?), not spend so much time on Facebook or on the computer, fix an occasional meal for the family so as to master some cooking skills/recipes before going off to college. I was a tad frustrated at my useless attempts for effective rearing of my adult daughter, and alas, you chose other options. As such, perhaps that precious extra summer time was lost and conceivably squandered away. To what end remains for you to judge (haha). All part of that adolescent-to-adult rite of passage ... and more for my own mother-of-a-teenager-then-mother-of-an-adult rite of passage!! Okay, so that was the worst of it. I really can't complain.
To date, your path has been a largely inspired and righteous one, Hahna. I don't know what lies ahead for you and Jake, and I imagine your blessed life may be peppered with some challenges, yet I'm sure that those extraordinary qualities of yours will help you through the tough times.
One day Jake will know you better than I do. On that day, your transition from us to him will be even more complete. Until such time, I will savor each grain of memory that clings to the aprons and blankies and cuddlies and memory boxes of your life. Jacob will continue to recognize in his own manner, and embrace, and cherish these things that I know you embrace and cherish, and which make you who you are (at least for the present) and fill your heart: your poetry --- heartfelt, pure, and you --- (though perhaps others' appreciation of it is such that you may feel that you've 'cast your pearls before swine'); your writings; Your need for, and love of, physical affection as a public and private affirmation of someone's love for you; your academic gifts; your gift as peacemaker and desire to avoid confrontation or disharmony and desire to please to the point of self-effacement or silence of your own needs; your joy in music and their lyrics; your love of nature and simplicity; How someone needs to work to get your feelings or concerns out of you (rather than you freely delivering them); Your gentleness and kindness that keeps you relatively unjaded. I pray that you continue to nurture those qualities and gifts that have consecrated your heart and spirit to things Divine, kept them tender, and yet help them soar: your fierce love and care for your children, your appreciation for your husband and his daily grind, your harp, piano, and flute gifts; your poetry and facility of beautiful language; your prayerful study and love of the Gospel and things of God. I also hope that you never underestimate or diminish the intensely hard and often mind-numbing work of mothering and teaching them in things of earth and heaven. If you feel others reduce your labors to the 'steerage' columns of life, defend our profession fiercely, for there is nothing more important.
Proverbs 31:10 says "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies." I am blessed to be the mother of such a virtuous woman. I always knew that the multi-layered fat little baby girl on my lap (haha) was more priceless to me than all the rubies in the world! I feel as though I was appointed and privileged to be one of those "angels" that your patriarchal blessing says is placed here to protect you. I know that I have to turn over most of that mantle of protector to a man I am honored to call my son (albeit 'in-law'). That's not an easy thing for me to do after holding that baby girl close for 18 years. Ah yes, that maternal rite of passage again. But one thing is certain: I'll always be able to keep the role as your mother and no one will be able to take that from me. That knowledge alone, continues to make me the happiest mother in the world. I love you.
Growing up gave rise to a continued love for, and from, you, which became always fully present and in the moment, as well as continually maturing and becoming richer. You would often sit out in the green belt by the black oak to be alone. Your were amazed at the difference your glasses made upon seeing the leaves on the trees in detail and thinking that everyone's gaze must be blurred. During those challenging middle school and high school years you were formidably optimistic and kind, even through some emotional times. You'd stroll up to the water's edge, find the waves of your life too choppy, and wander back to where your family and a loving Heavenly Father could provide you comfort and strength --- only to re-fortify you for another day.
Your first job at La Comida. Then Mountain Mike's. Then that survey place. Then as a classroom aide. EFY. As Ben's homecoming escort. Prom. Coldplay. Your shyness. Your poise. Your beauty. Your driver's license. You and Nikki. Your senior project. Your hike up Half Dome with dad. All the boys who suddenly found you interesting once you graduated (remember your b-day dinner at Mtn. Mike's when you were surrounded by only a dozen guys? haha. Who wouldathunk? :) Your surprise scholarship! Your BYU experience and being blessed with great roommates. Your piano and harp playing that filled our home with tangible comfort (sniff. I miss it.). Your ever-growing spirituality. Your marriage to that wonderful boy of yours. Your fun wedding, reception, and honeymoon! At each threshold of your life, you've been poised to enthusiastically leap to the next level. You're fearless.
Lest I be accused of over-romanticizing my memories of my firstborn, I shall share the following: yes, you were a perfectly compliant and good-natured child ... and even when adolescence struck you were never prone to disobedience. And what for most parents would have been no big deal, came as a surprise to me as a slight twinge of stubborness and independence kicked in after you turned 18. In testing your independence, your newly-arrived-adult-self opted out of my suggestions on what to do with your time and talents during your precious summer breaks, and my recommendations on how to constructively spend some of your time found no fertile soil in this new Hahna: I had recommended you use your harp talents to play for hospice patients, use your spare time to engage in meaningful service, look for another job to add to your 12-15 hour-per-week job and too much free time, practice your talents so you don't lose them (doesn't your patriarchal blessing say something about that?), not spend so much time on Facebook or on the computer, fix an occasional meal for the family so as to master some cooking skills/recipes before going off to college. I was a tad frustrated at my useless attempts for effective rearing of my adult daughter, and alas, you chose other options. As such, perhaps that precious extra summer time was lost and conceivably squandered away. To what end remains for you to judge (haha). All part of that adolescent-to-adult rite of passage ... and more for my own mother-of-a-teenager-then-mother-of-an-adult rite of passage!! Okay, so that was the worst of it. I really can't complain.
To date, your path has been a largely inspired and righteous one, Hahna. I don't know what lies ahead for you and Jake, and I imagine your blessed life may be peppered with some challenges, yet I'm sure that those extraordinary qualities of yours will help you through the tough times.
One day Jake will know you better than I do. On that day, your transition from us to him will be even more complete. Until such time, I will savor each grain of memory that clings to the aprons and blankies and cuddlies and memory boxes of your life. Jacob will continue to recognize in his own manner, and embrace, and cherish these things that I know you embrace and cherish, and which make you who you are (at least for the present) and fill your heart: your poetry --- heartfelt, pure, and you --- (though perhaps others' appreciation of it is such that you may feel that you've 'cast your pearls before swine'); your writings; Your need for, and love of, physical affection as a public and private affirmation of someone's love for you; your academic gifts; your gift as peacemaker and desire to avoid confrontation or disharmony and desire to please to the point of self-effacement or silence of your own needs; your joy in music and their lyrics; your love of nature and simplicity; How someone needs to work to get your feelings or concerns out of you (rather than you freely delivering them); Your gentleness and kindness that keeps you relatively unjaded. I pray that you continue to nurture those qualities and gifts that have consecrated your heart and spirit to things Divine, kept them tender, and yet help them soar: your fierce love and care for your children, your appreciation for your husband and his daily grind, your harp, piano, and flute gifts; your poetry and facility of beautiful language; your prayerful study and love of the Gospel and things of God. I also hope that you never underestimate or diminish the intensely hard and often mind-numbing work of mothering and teaching them in things of earth and heaven. If you feel others reduce your labors to the 'steerage' columns of life, defend our profession fiercely, for there is nothing more important.
Proverbs 31:10 says "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies." I am blessed to be the mother of such a virtuous woman. I always knew that the multi-layered fat little baby girl on my lap (haha) was more priceless to me than all the rubies in the world! I feel as though I was appointed and privileged to be one of those "angels" that your patriarchal blessing says is placed here to protect you. I know that I have to turn over most of that mantle of protector to a man I am honored to call my son (albeit 'in-law'). That's not an easy thing for me to do after holding that baby girl close for 18 years. Ah yes, that maternal rite of passage again. But one thing is certain: I'll always be able to keep the role as your mother and no one will be able to take that from me. That knowledge alone, continues to make me the happiest mother in the world. I love you.
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