When your mom told me she was pregnant with you, I was petrified. Even though we wanted to have a baby, I wasn’t truly ready. But, is anyone truly ready? I kept thinking about how I might mess up and cause you harm, either by dropping you on the ground (which did happen) or by hindering you from reaching your full potential. As you’ve grown, I’ve realized that while I have messed up at times, those mess ups haven’t hindered you and your trajectory.

As you go off to college, two images of you keep popping up in mind, both from years ago in Louisiana. The first is a picture of you at five years old outside of Judice Inn. You’re standing by the door with a green hoodie over your head and a toothpick in your mouth, pointing it upward. You have a snarl on your face, that look that exudes confidence and assertiveness. Even then, you knew who you were and you knew that no one could deny you yourself.

The other image is from a year later. You’re standing next to an oak tree on the campus where I was attending graduate school, holding your hands out in front of you in the shape of a heart and screaming at the camera. Again, you’re strong and independent, basically holding up a middle finger to anyone who tries to define you or tell you what to think and do. You’re saying to the world, “I’m here. I know who I am. I know what’s right, and I will fight for it.”

These two pictures have always felt punk rock to me, the swagger, the defiance in the face of injustice, the attitude. They feel like the Riot Grrrl scene and Kathleen Hannah and Bikini Kill singing “Rebel Girl,” telling everyone, “When she talks I hear the revolution.” When I took those pictures, I never imagined you’d be where you are today, eleven years later or what you’d have accomplished in that short period of time.

When I was your age, I could care less about the collective future I would inhabit or leave to you and others. I only cared about the day, the moment, and had pipe dreams of one day having a career in music. Nothing else mattered really, even during college. I had no purpose, no drive, no ambition beyond myself. Punk, to me, was fast and furious, devoid of any hope for revolution and change.

I missed the meaning of Billie Joe Armstrong singing about you and other women on “She” when he begins,

She, she screams in silence
A sullen riot penetrating through her mind
Waiting for a sign to smash the silence with a brick of self-control

In your life, you’ve thrown the “brick of self-control” through the glass, shattering it into a thousand tiny pieces because you won’t let anyone silence you. You’re like me, in so many ways, keeping away from confrontation, but you also speak up when you see injustice and work to find solutions and bring about change.

I remember during middle school when your class read To Kill a Mockingbird. Your teacher told the class they could, when reading from the novel, say “n*****.” You told your mom and me about it and how much that made you and some of the other students in class uncomfortable because you knew other students in the class giggled and laughed, spouting the word with no abandon as they exited the class and moved into the halls. You and other students spoke with the teacher, expressing your concerns, and even though the teacher didn’t change their mind, you stood up to a person in authority and told them why their decision to allow students to say the word was wrong.

When we watched 13th, you saw the history of the prison industrial complex, tracing back to enslavement, and its current manifestations and oppression. This led you to do something. As a high school student, you organized a book drive for incarcerated individuals, getting students, faculty, and staff to donate books that you could deliver to the individual who oversees the libraries in the state prison system. This led you to think about minoring in criminal justice, which shocked me at first until you said you wanted to do that to work on prison reform.

That’s not even half of what you did as a student in high school. You started a Women’s Empowerment Club and, for two years, held drives to get hygiene products and other items for a local organization that helps victims of domestic violence. You took part in a program that connected you with other students in Egypt, Belgium, and elsewhere working on global issues such a climate change. This allowed you to speak in front of the individuals from the Egyptian government, a United Nations committee, ambassadors from other nations, companies such as Microsoft, and so much more, all giving you the confidence to use your voice and the confidence that you can change the world.

You performed in plays, danced, and even did Cirque performances, learning how to do the cyr wheel, which you killed. You even got a group of classmates together to perform a Kids in the Hall skit. I never thought my daughter would find humor and joy in things that influenced me such as Kids in the Hall or Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith or punk. The fact that you act out Silent Bob trying to get the cigarette to ascend in the air with the force or quote Randall Graves’ salsa shark routine makes me laugh and brings me joy because it’s a connection across time, linking us together. It’s something that, like watching The Three Stooges or Atlanta Braves games with my dad or grandfather, binds us together, giving us a common language that spans generations.

You hate it when people list things you’ve done and say they’re proud of you. You’re like me in that way. I never hype myself up, to my determent at times. Never hinder yourself from sharing your accomplishments because those accomplishments aren’t selfish. Everything you do involves others, bringing people together to make the world and your community better. You are, what Marie Cochran would call, “a cultural pollinator.” You link people and don’t put yourself out front. You see progress as a collective endeavor, one that requires many, not just one. Never lose that. Remember Ecclesiastes 4:11–12, “Again, if two lie together, they are warm; but how can one be warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Never stop learning and engaging with the world. You and your brother both thirst for knowledge, in different ways, wanting to constantly learn and expand your horizons. I love that you see art and literature as a way to do that. Selfishly, I would be ecstatic if you decided to go into literature during college, but I know that won’t happen and I know that what you want to do will involve literature because literature teaches us about the world. The fact that two of your favorite novels are Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre highlights that point. Never forget what Lillian Smith wrote, “I don’t know when learning stops. But I know a writer never stops learning, not ever — until she is dead as a creative being. When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die: time to crawl up into that small room and pull the cover over you.”

Know that you are a badass, punk, riot grrrl who will impact those around you for the better. Any impact is important, and I don’t know what legacy or impact you will have, but I know you have already, in your short time on this rock hurtling through space, impacted countless individuals, showing them love, respect, kindness, compassion, and helping them lift their voices. You stand on the shoulders of your grandmothers, your mom, Lydia Maria Child, the Brontës, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Lillian Smith, Pauli Murray, Anne Moody, Jane Stembridge, Joan Browning, Angela Davis, and countless, countless others. You know the legacy you have inherited, and you know you are part of it. Never, ever, forget that.

I want to leave you with what Dessa raps in “Fire Drills.” She details how we tell girls and women to always be vigilant, to live in silence because silence “protects” you. But, that silence kills. She raps,

I think a woman’s worth
I think that she deserves
A better line of work
Than motherfucking vigilance
Don’t give me vigilance
By definition you can’t make a difference
If the big ambition is simply standing sentry to your innocence
That’s not a way to live
That can’t be what a woman is
That gives her nothing to aspire to

Use your voice, as you always have, to make the world a better place because your voice matters. Never forget who you are, and be true to yourself. You have already made me and the world better because of what you have already done. Even though you despise it when I say this, I really can’t wait to see where your journey takes you and the impact it will have.