She’s Got This Thing About Her

She’s Got This Thing About Her

My little girl is getting married. Just typing those words brings so much emotion. I adore the young man she is marrying. He is the one I’ve prayed for for over 25 years. He’s perfect for her in every way. Not only do I adore him, but his entire family. I truly couldn’t be happier for them.

When he asked for her hand in marriage, I gently told him…. She’s got this thing about her…..

She’s got this thing about her. I can’t quite explain it, but if you were to meet her, you’d know that she’s got this thing about her.

Does anyone else remember the scene in the old Father of the Bride movie where Annie is telling her father that she is getting married and he envisions her as 7 years old, telling him this story. I find myself having a similar moment often.

But… No matter how old she gets, she’s just got this thing about her. There is a Chris Young song that sums it up so perfectly.

She's got this thing about her …….It might be her smile cause it can change my day, blue eyes that chase my blues away

Like the magic in your favorite song, You just can't put your finger on.

Like a hymn in a cathedral hall, or watching April snowflakes fall. She’s got this thing about her.

It’s the sort of thing that cannot be pinned down with proper words, no matter how carefully you try to arrange them. It isn’t just her laugh—though it rings out like something bright and certain—nor is it only her kindness, though she gives it away as easily as most people give away smiles. It’s something quieter than that. Something that lingers.

It’s the way she has always belonged to both worlds at once. I’ve often thought she is too kind for this world.

This is the part of motherhood they don’t prepare you for.

To me, she is still the little girl who brought a different interesting fact to the dinner table every night and insisted that we look at the moon together each night to keep track in her moon journal. She loves animals and senses just what they need though she was allergic to most animals when she was young. I’ll never forget taking her to pick out a pet rabbit, only to see her in hives on the car ride home. She is the reason we gave away her sister’s cat.

She would ask a thousand questions before breakfast and believed every ordinary Tuesday held the possibility of something grand. I can still see her—short bob with bangs, butterflies on her nose, shoes on the wrong feet—announcing her plans for the day as if she were already quite certain she would quietly change the world before dinner. The hours spent walking with a book on her head to keep her posture proper and running for student body president so she could make changes that would benefit all. Still today, when I walk down the street in my neighborhood, I see glimpses of her learning to ride a bike, swimming for endless hours and I still see the lambs ear that grows along the road that she and I planted together. Beautiful reminders all around of the girl she used to be. She took her love for science and still uses it today to help others at a large Children’s Hospital.

She has always been a “gentle spirit.” She was the cutest freckled face little girl. In fact, her favorite slogan was a girl without freckles is like a night without stars. I couldn’t help but smile every time I saw that sweet freckled face. I would cup her face in my hands and kiss each of those freckles.

And yet, there she stands now… entirely her own person. Stunningly gorgeous. Steady. Thoughtful. Confident. Full of a kind of grace that doesn’t ask for attention but somehow gathers it anyway.

That’s her “thing.” A gentle kindness with strength and wisdom that makes you feel at ease and can’t help but put a smile on your face.

She has always carried both wonder and wisdom in the same small, gentle frame, and now it seems the world is finally catching up to what I’ve known all along. She has a gentle nature that holds incredible strength. She loves a crowded table but finds refuge in her time alone. She loves to create personal gifts like strawberry jam, dried florals, handmade paper and organic lotions and candles. She loves her people fiercely. We love her right back.

There are moments—quiet, sneaky ones—when time folds in on itself. I look at her and I see every version of her at once. The child, the girl, the woman. It’s enough to make a mother catch her breath and press her hand to her heart as if to steady it.

Because how can someone be so little and so grown all at once?

This is the part no one quite explains. Not in the baby books or the well-meaning advice or the cheerful conversations over hot tea. They tell you about sleepless nights and first steps and teenage years—but no one tells you about this gentle unraveling. This letting go, not because you must, but because you should.

Because she is ready.

And if I’m honest… I think I am too. Or at least, I am learning to be.

And now, here we are—gathering the small, meaningful details that make up a wedding day. Something borrowed, something blue… little traditions stitched together like keepsakes in a hope chest.

If I could choose what she carries with her, I think I’d offer her a blue rose.

Not because it is perfect—though it is lovely—but because it is rare. Unexpected. It’s delicate with many layers, just like her. A little bit of wonder in a world that often settles for ordinary. It feels like her… this beautiful blending of imagination and strength, of softness and quiet resolve. She reminds me of blue. Deep blue, like the depths of the ocean. Always thinking deeply and thoughtfully for those around her.

A blue rose doesn’t grow in the usual way. It must be dreamed of, created, believed into being.

And perhaps that is the truest thing about her.

She has always been a little bit of a miracle in motion—growing into herself in ways I could never have scripted, becoming exactly who she was meant to be, even when I couldn’t quite see the full picture yet. She has overcome obstacles no one should have to overcome. She has deep roots. She knows the gardener intimately. He is what makes her unique, strong, caring, kind and beautiful.

There is a sweetness tucked into this ache. A quiet pride that sits beside the tears and refuses to be overshadowed by them. I’m not losing her—I had the privilege of raising her into someone the world now gets to know and love. In fact, she is all the best parts of me and so much more. She took anything good that I gave her and built upon it in ways that will continue to make life changing impact.

Still… I will always see that seven-year-old girl in her. I suspect I always will. And perhaps that is the secret thread that runs through motherhood—that we hold every version of our children in our hearts, even as we place their hands into someone else’s and smile through the blur of it all.

She’s got this thing about her…

And somehow, wonderfully, she always will. I thank God for that.

I’m so glad that her groom loves and appreciates, that ….she’s got this thing about her.

Oh how I adore my Lindsay Lou and the honor and privilege of being her mother and “that thing about her.”

Love, Mom