Dear Avery & Tyler -- wealth

Dear Avery & Tyler,

Yesterday we kicked off Hanukkah with our annual Jacobs family party in South Dartmouth. Tyler, you loved playing football with your big cousins. And Avery, you and Hadley had so much fun with your American Girl Dolls.

My cousin Wendy was there. I love her dearly and always have. She and I grew up close. We played together like sisters at every family party, just like you do with your cousins. She and I have climbed Mt. Washington together several times, we have jumped into freezing cold lakes with our sports bras and underwear, we have shared the horror stories of first dates...and the joy of our wedding days.

Wendy is bubbly, hilarious, loving and beautiful. She is also rich. Not just a little rich. She is filthy, filthy rich. She had a conversation with her mother yesterday that I couldn't help but overhear. I was, after all, squished right next to them on the couch. Apparently she is in the process of building a new home (her 4th to be exact) and apparently it is costing her more than 5 million dollars.

I can't begin to imagine what 5 million dollars even looks like, nor do I really want to. I actually had to get up and walk outside. She may have mistaken my abrupt exit as some sort of jealousy, and that's fine if she did. But I want to be clear with the two of you. Jealousy was not the culprit. Not at all. It was the opposite actually. I feel bad for her. She thinks that yachts and trips around the world and $5 million dollar houses are the things that are going to make her happy in life. But they never will.

She will never be a mother. She will never look down at a tiny infant and know the true definition of love at first sight. She will never stare into the eyes of her little girl and see herself staring back. She will never be asked by a 6-year-old boy to meet her under the mistletoe. She will never be the most beautiful person in the entire world. She will never be loved as sweetly and purely and enormously as a child loves his mother. And she will never get to love anyone that enormously either.

She may have money and she may have things, but in the big picture of life, what does she have that really matters?

Last night after you were both sound asleep tucked cozy into your beds, I lay down with each of you and whispered into your ear, "I would never trade this life for anything."

I am the wealthiest woman in the world.

"I did it all
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
With every broken bone, I swear I lived
I hope you spend your days and they all add up
And when that sun goes down
I hope you raise your cup..."

Love,
Mom