Letters to My Daughter

In three weeks, I will be 25 years old and a graduate student at an Ivy League University. I am shaping my education and building my career, my future, and taking steps to improve myself, and challenge myself. I want to expose myself to ideas again, to be filled with art, culture, and love. I am excited and I do not know yet if I am ready. 

On Sunday July 5th, I came back from Chicago to a burnt house. The house that is directly behind our house burned down, the blackened wood erect in the place of a home. I often saw the house from my kitchen window. I remember a mother walking with an infant son, children playing on a swing, the neatly landscaped backyard. I do not the names or faces of any of these people but I remember the perfect white picket fence. It's all gone now. My dad reminded me that these houses that we build with so much time and sweat are really just made from plastic and wood. Despite our best efforts to beautify and clean and organize our homes, the very construction is combustible. May God have mercy on the family that lived there.