5 Snaps about Love

From Us to Her for Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day! If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!

I write letters to my newborn son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. If you’ve been here before — thank you for coming back. If you’re new here, here are some favorites written to Myles about my best friend, his mother.

• 10 Things I Love about Your Mother

• How I Met Your Mother

• My Wife’s Love Affair - It’s exactly what you don’t think

• Three Months after I Met Your Mother

• How I Proposed to Your Mother

One of my favorite writers,

Deirdre Lewis

, creates writes these beautiful stories she calls

Snaps

. The title is a gentle nod to her work. Happy Mother’s Day, D!

---

23 Months

Dear Myles,

For every letter I’ve written to you, I feel like I could write a hundred more for her. Here are a few I pulled from my notes.

Home

I could not tell
east from west,
could not tell
how to get home
without GPS—

despite living in the same place for years

I could not tell you
north from south.
But there is something about her
that lets me—
body and spirit,
flesh and bone—
feel,
without question,
like home.

---

Trinity

You will meet many people you love—until you meet the one who makes you question how you ever used that word so loosely with others. For me, that person is your mother—friend, wife, and blessing all wrapped in one. They say beauty is only skin deep, but your mother’s beauty goes deeper than any layer of skin—it’s soul deep. And for me, this is what love is: something I know intimately and feel palpably, yet still struggle to put into words.

---

See about Me

You want to know how I knew there was something special about her? Before you, before we were married—back when we had just met—I remember having one of those days where everything inside just felt wrong. I was living in Jersey at the time, and your mother lived in Brooklyn. When she asked how I was feeling that day, I told her the truth: I said I was feeling down and didn’t know why.

She asked for my address. She never asked how to get there, but still, she made the trip—two buses, two trains, a two-hour journey—just to make sure I was okay.

I don’t know if that’s when I fell in love, but I know that was the first time someone made me feel easy to love. Even though I felt unwound and sinking on the inside, she held me like every part of me was just right. And that is when I knew this was something special—because for all the years I lived in Jersey, not one friend ever visited. I don’t know what that says about my friends, but here she was—a woman I’d met barely a month ago on the subway—making the journey just to see about me.

---

But Enters Eve

God willing, your mother and I will be together longer than we’ve been alive separately. I think this is what God meant when He said, “Two shall become one flesh”—how man was not made to be alone. In Eden, Adam watched the birds flying in pairs, the animals of the field moving together—perhaps even the bears too—and even though God walked with Adam daily, it wasn’t enough. God could feel Adam’s longing for something even His divine presence alone could not provide.

Then came Eve—created from rib and longing, to complete him, to make him whole.

Because even though we are not broken, maybe we are just pieces of ourselves, even when our lives seem full. Still, we long for love. We long to share this life with someone else—to laugh until we cry, our stomachs in knots. To say the things we could never say to anyone else. To fold our bodies into another’s warmth. To wake each morning knowing we are not alone.
And if the world ever decides to engulf itself in flames, at least we know we once held the hand of love—a love some will never see.

Thank God for Eve. Thank God for your mother.

---

The Only Poem You’ll Ever Need to Say

Love,

Daddy

Happy Mother’s Day Wifey

---

If you can’t commit to a monthly subscription, but still want to support Myles’ college plan, here is my Buy Me a Coffee page.

And if you are on Substack, please restack this letter and recommend it so I can share this love with the world.

---

Let me know your thoughts:

1. Which one of the Snaps resonated with you?

2. What feelings does Mother’s Day bring up for you?

3. Who’s someone you feel safe and secure with?

---

Want more of Myles’ Letters?

These are Subscriber’s favorites:

• They Say When Man Makes a Plan, God Laughs.

• Myles met his Grandfather in Brooklyn, NY

• Read about Our first Father’s Day.

• A video about beautiful backgrounds: Tell Them Where You're From.

• Read about My Wife’s Love Affair - It’s exactly what you don’t think

• Have you ever been Cooking in the Bathroom kind of tired?

• Check out Carrying the Gift, Holding the Love