I have memories from my childhood that come back to me in flashes and echos. Memories of me in front of my bedroom mirror, Mama’s brushing my thick, waist-length hair. As she brushes she says, “You’re so beautiful” and “You can do anything you want to do.”

In another, I’m about four or five years old, standing on the edge of Tomlinson’s pool looking down into the clear water. I wanted to swim, but I was afraid.

“I’m not big enough yet,” I told Mama matter-of-factly.

“Yes, you are. You can do it,” she said, her voice calm and encouraging.

I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “No, not yet” then stepped back from the edge.

She didn’t yell or shame or pressure me. She just kept telling me I could do it. I don’t remember when it was that I decided I was big enough to swim, but eventually I did. Just like Mama said.

When I was in my junior year of high school, my dad got transferred to another position in a different town. We had to move a couple hundred miles away leaving behind a close-knit group of friends I’d developed beginning in junior high. As a teenager, it was devastating. For weeks, I moped around and gave myself over to fits of crying. I was miserable.

One thing my friends and I had done back home was pass notes between classes at school. These notes were folded into a little square with one corner tucked into itself as a way of sealing it shut. One day, I came home from my new school to find a note lying on my bed folded in that same particular way. It was from Mama.

It didn’t say anything special. In it, she inquired about my day and told me about hers. The same sort of thing that would have been in the notes from my friends. I still have that note. Every once in a while, I pull it out and read it. I’m always struck by how benign the words are. Nothing special. But the words on the page weren’t the real message. The real message was that she saw me. She understood what I was feeling, and she was letting me know I wasn’t alone.

I look back now and see what I couldn’t see as a child. With every stoke of the brush, every meal cooked, every stitch sown, every time she held my hand in hers, she was being intentional. She was showing me how to be kind, considerate, thoughtful.

Love is in the little things. I’m amazed time and time again at how the smallest acts resonate throughout time like a pebble dropped into a pool of water. They resound until they are bigger than their beginning, traveling through time and space to deliver a message again and again. You are loved.

It took many years for me to realize Mama was right. I could do whatever I wanted. What I found was that becoming rich and famous wasn’t at the top of my list, though that could still happen. Through the years, I learned that what I really wanted was to be brave and strong. The kind of person who does the right thing. Someone who could keep pressing on when times are hard, who could love no matter what.

These are the things Mama taught me.

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