Dear Lyla,
You were named after two very special women; my grandma Lyla and daddy’s great grandma May. It is because they were so dear to your daddy and I that we named you after them. They were both strong, kind women with great senses of humor. When I was young I loved to spend time with my grandma Lyla at her apartment in Madison, MN. She was what you would expect a grandma to be like. She always smiled, she smelled good and she was kind of squishy when you hugged her. What patience she had with me when I was little, I was always on the go. I constantly begged her to take Patti and I to the pool or to watch me perform one more dress-up show, or to tell “pretty please” just one more story. There was one story that she told me time and time again, Thumbelina. Oh how I could just imagine a little girl no bigger than your thumbnail who would sleep in a walnut shell. I had an insatiable need for tales of the brave Thumbelina and grandma could spin a yarn like nobody’s business. So enthralled I was with the story of the little pixie that she started to call me Thumbelina. You can imagine my excitement to receive a letter addressed to Thumbelina Marie Pier! It was a special delight that she and I shared, all those adventures of the sassy little girl who lived in the nutshell (and in grandma’s version of the story, Thumbelina and I seemed to share many of the same physical features). To this day I can remember the timbre of grandma’s voice as she would make the characters come alive for me during story time. It was truly a gift that she gave to me; to feel so safe and secure that I could let my mind imagine the most wondrous and impossible of tales. It is grandma’s lesson to share the gift of imagination that I hope to pass on to you. I pray that you will always take the time to let your mind dream of things that are not tangible yet, somehow, real. I wish for you to learn there is value in letting your mind wander from time to time (some of my best ideas come from a little recreational day dreaming). Finally, I hope you fiercely protect and hold safe the inner child who embraces life’s possibilities with abandon.
Letters To Lyla 