J. D. Porter

At 16 months of age, you have finally started speaking. For the past few months, you have been vocally active at a high volume—seeming to like the way your voice echoes in the hallway. We have been reading to you for months, and you have learned to say car (“caw”), tried to say truck, and when I asked, “Where is the cat?” in an open book, you placed your finger on it without hesitation. I can’t say you were talking, but you were darned close.

You were also growing visibly frustrated at not being able to make yourself understood, especially at mealtimes. I have been looking forward to understanding you better – your likes and dislikes, aches and pains, what makes you happy or sad, afraid or tired. Words are becoming more important to both of us.

I love words. Grandma and I play word puzzles on our phones every day. And anyone who knows me knows I like to write. There is just something about the creative process that I find satisfying—finding the right word, the perfect turn of phrase, the rhythm of the story.

In my parent’s generation, people wrote letters to each other. Lovers penned heartfelt missives, soldiers wrote letters from the frontlines, and spies used letters to send coded messages. These days, we prefer to generate posts, texts, and emails that are brief, impulsive, and superficial.

One of the most moving letters I ever heard was written during the American Civil War by Major Sullivan Ballou on July 14, 1861. Major Ballou’s letter reads like poetry: “But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights, … and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.”

Tragically, Sullivan Ballou was killed at the First Battle of Bull Run, just a week after he wrote his letter. But his words are still an inspiration more than 160 years later. I wish I could write as well as Sullivan Ballou and have my words inspire someone a hundred years after I’m gone.

But today, it is your words that interest me. After months of pointing very deliberately at nothing in particular and verbalizing sounds that may or may not have sounded like car or dog or dad, you have begun to purposefully and in context repeat words like bye-bye, outside, all done, ball, and (most telling) no no no. You have also begun to appreciate the written word when you pull books from your bookshelf and turn pages by yourself.

English poet John Dryden said, “Words are but pictures of our thoughts.” I look forward to hearing your thoughts. And I hope you learn to love words as much as I do.