Matthew van Maastricht

When we were still anticipating my son, I began writing letters to him. I wrote about the progress we were making on his nursery, how excited we were for his arrival, the hopes that we had with him. And then during his first year, I wrote him a letter once a month. My plan was to keep doing this (to write a letter to him annually on his birthday), and then when he got older I would give them all to him. I hand wrote them and then it seems they were misplaced somewhere in the move to New York, and I was gutted, and it zapped the energy for the project. If I ever find them, I’ll at least have some things to share with him.

But as he’s growing, I find I have different hopes and joys and worries and concerns. Now six years later, his personality is starting to show, and he has taken a lot from me (poor kid), the reality into which he is growing is quite a bit different than the reality into which I grew, and in some ways it’s also very similar.

So I’m going to start a new (or is it renewed?) project of writing letters to him, but sharing them here. So why am I writing them here? Perhaps it’s because the internet feels more stable than paper (how ironic is that?). Perhaps it’s because I like to think that maybe others might in some way gain some edification from these. Maybe it’s because someday he may find them when he can’t burn them in a rage when he’s angry at me. And there’s a good chance that I’m processing my thinking here as I often do. Maybe it’s because this is a kind of prayer that I often offer publicly in my vocation. But regardless of the actual driving reason, I will be sharing these things here.

You’re welcome to read these, of course. I mean, I hope you do. Maybe you’ll gain something from them in some way. Or, at least, it may reinforce the fact that we are all on the journey of life together.