Susan Senator

I was mining my old PC documents folder to try to find the script I had written for “Get Over it, Brookline!” — the comedy show I may do for my local access television station. And look at what I found, from May, 2003, just before Nat’s Bar Mitzvah:

Statement for Nat

How can we tell you what you mean to us? When you were born, we were ecstatic. We named you Nathaniel, which means “Gift of God.” We were certain of our gift. We were so eager to get home and begin our life with you.

Our life together was not what we expected. Living with you is always a roller coaster ride, up and down. Times of feast, times of famine. Some very hard times, but they only make the good times so much more intensely sweet. When you are doing well, at school, and with other people, we feel like the sky is the limit. We push you for more, ever more. Sometimes we push too hard. But no one pushes as hard as you. Ever since you were a baby, we have all felt that you do whatever you can, despite how hard it must be for you.

Nat, we admire you so much. For not only what you have achieved in school, in gymnastics, in the work you do, in being here today. But for your sweet Nat self. Your innocence. The way you become sad when I’m sad. The way you re-membered to kiss me on Mother’s Day, first thing in the morning. The way you willingly mow the lawn. The way you make corn bread. Or jump up to get some-thing that Ben left upstairs. The way you go up to people and smell them. The ways you let people know, somehow, what’s on your mind. The way you are fearless in the waves at Cape Cod, undaunted by the wipe-outs or the cold water.

But most of all, the way you have taught us perspective, compassion, empathy.

They say that God works in mysterious ways. Well I think that’s true. Because here you are. Nathaniel, gift of God, we are so proud of you, for all that you have been through, for all that you have given us, and for all that you are yet to become.