Thoughts on Writing

Does it ever happen to you that a certain theme seems to enter your universe several times over the course of a day or two, and you find yourself wondering whether maybe you should be paying attention to it? Well that happened for me over the last few days.



The first time it came up was during our Parenting Twenty-Somethings group which was meeting on a Monday evening. Thirteen of us were sitting around a circle, sharing our experiences related to communication with our twenty-something sons and daughters. One dad told the group about his practice of sending a "real" note of some kind (yes, through the U.S. mail) each week to his son who was living away. The notes were not necessarily long or deeply thoughtful, but simply a touchpoint and way of connecting. Many months later when his son returned, the dad was touched to see that his son had saved all the notes and kept them wrapped up in an elastic for safekeeping. Certainly this note-writing had worked and made a difference in this father-son relationship.


The theme came back a second time when I was sitting with a client whose 29-year-old son is in a residential detox program. Her son told her in a phone call that he was going to be writing her a letter. Her eyes were teary as she told me, in a caring and loving tone, that she was going to set aside some time during the coming weekend to write to him, too. A lot of things had been spinning around in her thoughts, and she felt that if he is taking the time to write a letter to her, that she would do the same for him.


The letter-writing theme was coming at me from several directions. I woke up the next morning and decided I needed to write my own letter. I find that my thoughts flow most easily in the early morning, so with a cup of coffee and a blank pad of paper, I sat down to write as the sun was rising out the window.


What do you need to say to your young adult child? Or perhaps more importantly, what does he or she need to hear?