The last journal

Some 44 years ago I opened a new, college-ruled marble notebook and began the first of dozens of journals. They came in all shapes and sizes; sometimes I bought books while traveling to memorialize my impressions in a piece of the location. But the majority were marble notebooks.

Nearly 33 years ago, my husband saw me writing in a journal one day and wanted to read it. I declined – I had never shared my journals with anyone. He was angry and said it was his right as my husband. Rather than argue, I stopped keeping a journal.

Thirty years ago, my son was born, and my mother bought me a set of blue marble journals: to write of my experience of motherhood. Over the years, I bought many others when those were full. Each journal entry is written to my son – at first daily, eventually less often when life interfered or I really didn’t want to remember (year 12 was not a good year – I suspect I summarized the misery in a few paragraphs). I wrote about everything: what he did, what he learned, the myriad milestones, our trips, his playdates, the games we played, our family visits, his friends, funny or oddly wises things he said, the friends he made, the sweetheart, how he seemed to feel, how he made me feel… I kept a journal of his life until he turned 18 at which time he went off to college and the rest of his life. I hoped to be invited in often to bear witness to the life he would create.

The cover of the journal I bought for that final year looks like the frame for a painting. Two days after his 17th birthday, I wrote:

"My darling ----,

I chose this journal today as the last into which I will write the events of your childhood. Your seventeenth year began on Wednesday. In 2011, you will turn eighteen, graduate from high school, begin college and set upon a new path, begin chapter two or part II of the life that is yours. You will continue becoming the man you are meant to be, but no longer a bedroom away.

I chose this particular journal because the cover looks like the frame for a painting – without the painting. Significant because you will begin adding great strokes of color to the painting of your life. Also, if you look carefully, there appear to be sketches, shadows, vague forms already in the painting. We will not send you out to meet the world a blank canvas. You are already a good and kind young man. You are smart and insightful. You have had many wonderful and varied experiences and friendships that have helped you become the young man you are today. You have already begun the painting that will be your life. But it has only just begun – hence the sketches and vague shadows that will become a beautiful, vivid work of art along the way.

I love you, Darling."