Bebe Oso

10 Month Mylestones : 10 Keepsake Artifacts for Future Joy

If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!

I write letters every week to my son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. I am using my writing to put towards his college fund.

If you’ve been here before — thank you for coming back. If you’re new here, below are some good places to start:

• Read my most recent letter to him - Pictures Can’t Hold Full Stories

• Balm for Wounds: Apologizing in Advance

• Tell them Where You’re From

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Myles is now 10 months. Once a month, I've been sharing our MYLESTONES. You can read about his past Mylestones here. But this month, I wanted to think about 10 items I wanted him to have that he could possibly pass down to his children and they could do the same.

45 Weeks Old

Dear Myles,

I hope these remind you where we’ve been, so you can know where you are going.

1. Maternity Pictures

   There is the glimmer of the moon, and the shine of the sun, but then there is the glow of your mother when she carried you – it was this day I knew she needed her own constellation. But for now, you and I will do just fine in her orbit.

   

2. Baby Oso

   We slept with these pairs of baby slippers over our bed for almost two years before you were born. Like an ornament, a testimony, a reminder to God after we prayed for what we wanted when we could not conceive. At the time, we purchased a pair for each of us; mine said “Papa Bear,” your mother’s “Mama Bear” - but they are long gone now, worn by the passage of time while we waited for you. Yours remind me to keep the faith even when it gets hard – I hope it does the same for you.

3. Family Portrait

   On the weekend of your baby shower, my brother, your Uncle, flew down with just a bag in hand and said, “I want to paint you a family portrait.” We took him to Home Depot and waited in the car for him, and in half an hour, he came jogging back with a cardboard box, a canvas, brushes, and everything else an artist needs to do what they do. In one weekend, he worked day and night by flashlight to produce this piece below. I love this piece because it’s the first time I’ve seen him paint/draw a woman and child, he usually draws the man on the left 1,000 different ways.

4. Fussy Art Piece

   You kicked and fussed when we dipped your feet in paint. You kicked and fussed when we made you walk across the canvas. But your mother and I laughed and smiled when we realized things don’t always go as planned but still get to be beautiful. You inspired a short story, by an author (Justin Deming). You are already an inspiration - just because you are here.

5. Dis Ti Dwet - Ten Little Fingers

   This is the first book I’ve ever bought you. We read it almost every day. I try to read you books exclusively in Haitian Creole in hopes that the little I know somehow will manifest itself in your tongue. I am the only one here who can speak this amalgamation of French, Fon, Igbo, Spanish; this is how we keep the lineage alive – through our words, that only you and I will understand. I worry I will fail you; that my tongue is too brittle to form words in Haitian -Creole how they should sound. But at least I can hide my tongue in the bottom flat of my mouth to enunciate that “r” to say I love you, mwen renmen ou - that is what matters.

6. Smiling Faces

   These pictures are on the walls of our home. I want you to see images of me smiling at your mother and her smiling back at me. I want you to see the incarnation of love and joy before you see them on screens of other people. When I met your mother, I initially questioned my love for her because I never saw or felt this at home. So we are starting early - this is what love looks like in its most basic form: a smile, a hug, and laughter so hard that people who are not privy to ask want to know what could be that funny. You will know what love looks like. Love is home.

7. A Letter from your Godmother, Rachel Leeke

   There is friendship, and there is family. I hope this letter, your godmother Rachel wrote for you at 44 weeks, reminds you that friends and family share that first consonant because they can be interchangeable - where your family falls short, your friends will keep you. I hope you find a friend like Rachel who will write about your growth, witness you for your worth, and, as she says, “straighten your crown” when you forget who you are.

8. Expensive Receipts

   I went to an expensive school and took out a very expensive loan to teach other people’s children - the debt is above me now. At times, it felt a little foolish. But as a first-generation college student and a child of immigrants, it was important to me to carry the torch as far as I could so no one after me could say it could not be done. This is why I attended an Ivy League. The very expensive torch still sits wrapped in its casing. I hope it reminds you that you can and are able, and that you do not need an expensive receipt to validate your existence like I did.

7. Quilted sheet from Great Grandma

   Your great-grandmother is 93 and counting, still going and kicking. When she held you for the first time, we had to help her; she was so excited she said, “It’s been so long since I’ve held a child.” The only gift she ever gave me, a few years, maybe five before you were born, was a quilted sheet that she made when she was in the nursing home for a stint. Your grandmother, her daughter, reminds me how she used to make dresses and skirts when she was a child. This blanket reminds me that those same hands, as old and unsteady as they are, were still patching something just for me - now it’s yours.

8. Christmas Ornaments

   I used to be a Grinch. I do not have any memories of Christmases when I was young; the mind has a way of burying the hard times. But your first Christmas turned me into Santa's helper. These are your first ornaments, handcrafted by a friend, Josefina H. Sanders , one says “Myles’ first Christmas and the other has the name of the grandma you never got to meet (left). This past month made it a year since she passed. You would have loved her. The other is from the only place your mother might love more than me, but less than you: Target.

   

Love,

Daddy

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While I don't rely on people paying, these letters are a labor of love. All funds collected from writing these letters go towards Myles' college savings. Consider upgrading your subscription to help ensure Myles avoids student debt like his dad.

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

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

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Thank you to Jamal Robinson for creating this found poem from a letter I wrote to Myles about how I proposed to his mother.

Let me know your thoughts:

1. Which one of these mylestones/noticings resonated with you?

2. Tell me about an artifact that you have or wish you had that reminds you of home/parent?

Want more of Myles’ Letters?

• Here’s something light - Shirtless Nights

• Something medium - Last week you met your Grandfather

• Something Heavy - Sons of California and Palestine

• Read about Our first Father’s Day.

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I’ve teamed up with some great people to host a writing group called Locked In - a weekly virtual writing session for Black, Indigenous, & Writers of Color and writers of the global majority. We write together every Friday at 9:00AM ET. If you’re looking for some community around writing, please tap in.