06/19/2026
They are all the versions of themselves. Looking back through the pictures, you feel how your heart has expanded because every year you thought please don’t grow up, please stay this age forever. But, if you find yourself indescribably lucky, they do grow up. They do the thing they’re created to do: they get bigger and stronger and smarter. They learn more about how to be a person, they understand new things, they begin to realize they’re part of a bigger story and world. When you look at them, you see all the days of their lives. As the parent, you are the keeper of these memories, of their little faces, the days that were so stupidly hard and the ones you’d go back to in a heartbeat. You look at the pictures through all the years and let yourself be soft enough to acknowledge that somehow you want to throw up with the pain and cry your eyes out at the joy of being their mother.
This child, Grayben Andrew Nolen, is a miracle, a wonder. He is 18 today! Some people say it goes so fast but I don’t feel that way. I have felt every day of these 18 years with him; we have become ourselves together. I look at his sweet face and sparkly brown eyes and all I can do is pray that the explosive love I feel in my heart is somehow transmitted to him in a way that settles deep in his bones. He’s a worker man through and through, always has been and so, of course, he went to bed last night hoping it wasn’t going to rain all day today so he could get after it and cut some grass today. Happy 18th birthday, Grayben Nolen! I love you to the moon and back.
