Keeper of Memories

I decided a few months ago to spend some time writing down memories for one of my adopted daughters. I was preparing to go on a trip and getting everything in order, when I had a thought. If anything happened to me, all of my memories would be inaccessible to my daughter. She’s a curious girl of eight, a question-asker. And I enjoy answering her inquiries about what happened when she was a baby and how her first mom loved her and how I felt when I met her. But there is a lot I leave out- things that need to be saved until she’s older. Adult things. Things that my husband will forget- has forgotten already. Things that will be explained by her bio-family perhaps, one day, that may be tainted by their own memories, defenses and interpretations of events. And although that’s okay, I also want her to hear my memories as well. The way she looked the first time I met her, her little ways of sweetness, and yes, the adult things too. The things that she has a right to know about one day. The “Why’s.” So I wrote it all down to be kept in the safe with the other important papers. So that if “anything happens to me,” and she comes to a point of investigation in her life, she can read my words and hear my heart and understand how much I love her.