A letter to my daughters

Just in case

When my brother found out he was dying, I suggested we write a book for his four girls. At the time they were 2, 6, 8 and 10. “Let’s get down on paper some of your best advice, your funny stories,” I suggested. “Not because you are going to die, but because it’s smart to hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

He brushed off the idea. He was not convinced he would die, despite the 7% survival rate odds he faced. “It’s going to be fine Jennifer,” he said, dispatching the older-brother- knows-best tone he’d honed over 45 years. Regardless of his mortality, he was suddenly very aware of the need to bank every dollar possible. In case. He wanted to focus on work, not words.

He did die, which was devastating on so many levels. I often think about the book that never happened. Selfishly, I wish I had gotten that time with him, afternoons or evenings hashing out stories and laughing about the absurdity of even giving advice to kids. Achingly, I wish he had done it for his daughters because they were so young when he died. They would have loved his wisdom, cherished his humor and had more to hang onto. They knew him as children know their fathers, not as an adult with a lifetime of wisdom and wounds to share.

My kids are now 14 and 16. I hope to live for a long time. But hope isn’t a plan. So here’s a first draft of some things I want them to know. They will likely laugh at some of these, because they know them, or they’ve heard me say them or they are quietly confident that I will be there when they need counsel.

This is in case I’m not.

1. It’s ok to not have everything figured out. Figuring stuff out, and letting people know you are figuring it out, is real and human. We are all in formation. It is liberating and unifying to embrace that. Others will be so relieved to know they are not alone feeling a bit at sea in the world.

2. Learning to be alone is a superpower. Loneliness is brutal and hard but it’s also part of life. Learn to be quiet, without your phone. To lose yourself in a book. To walk without music and think. Don’t be afraid of your thoughts. Embrace them, even the messy and uncomfortable ones.

3. Nature is revitalizing. A walk in the woods, a dip in the sea, a wander up a mountain makes a world of difference to clear cobwebs, to reset and resettle, or to allow the emotions that are resting below to surface. Life in cities is loud and fast and chaotic (especially New York City). Resetting our nervous systems is worth the hassle of an early train and a long walk to get to a mountain, or a beach, or some woods.

4. Relationships are everything. This advice sounds pat and clean and on paper, as meaningless as it is meaningful. You can and should invest in a career, but not at the expense of the relationships that matter. We need humans to help us muck through the world. Relationships take time. There are no hacks. Go to the weddings, always turn up for the tragedies, and make the space that’s needed.

When Robbie died at 47 I saw the physical manifestation of this truth in hundreds of people packed into a church for him in Maplewood NJ. There were people whose houses he had designed, whose kids he had coached in lacrosse, whose local stores he frequented. There were friends and family and acquaintances who admired his dignity, integrity, his shy-ish smile. You don’t know who will show up when things really go wrong. Some of Robbie’s friends ghosted him; a business partner actually abandoned him. But most people turned up, made food, shuttled kids to places, had a drink when things looked bleak and tried to shroud the horror of what was happening in decency and kindness.

5. Reading is hard but always worth it. TV is easy and fun, but make time for books. They change you in ways you will never know but will feel over time. Books try to make sense of the human condition. They explore love and happiness and death and despair and careers and adventure. They delve into every single relationship that makes humanity tick and all the ones that drive it bonkers (mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, siblings, lovers, rivals, bosses, friends, to name a few). Books expose you to the world in every way: its beauty and horror. Go there. As James Baldwin wrote:

“You think your pain and heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

6. Family meals matter even when they are 15 minutes long and everyone is pissed off at each other. We need nourishment and that comes in many forms. Food and family—and human connection—are big ones. Find time to gather and to break bread, share some of your day, however inconsequential it feels. It will nourish your body but also your mind and heart (also, and you knew this one was coming: be kind to each other amidst the fights and annoyances; you are so lucky to have each other).

7. Be intentional. “How you spend your days is how you spend your life” Annie Dillard famously wrote. Choose how to spend your days. Not just your job (though that too), but how much time you spend on social media, what you watch and read, how you make space for your sister, or parents, your neighbours and friends, your cousins and family. It matters.

8. Caring is cool. I say this as an American living in the UK. Effort is not always viewed as a virtue here. Like many Americans. I relish trying hard and I don’t see the point in hiding that. I’ve loved this Theodore Roosevelt quote since my own teen years:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

9. Commit to learning. About people, the world, ideas—even ones you think are disdainful. Curious people are likable. They are adaptable because they are paying attention. They are useful. As Satya Nadella would say, be a learn-it-all, not a know-it-all.

10. Dogs and music bring joy. If you have the time and money, get a dog. Listen to music, go to concerts but for god sakes, turn it down when you have the headphones in. You don’t want to be deaf by age 20.