A Letter To My Daughter – Senior Soccer Night

Dear readers,

Please indulge my proud mommy heart as I share with you the full copy of a letter I wrote for my daughter. I was disappointed when it was cut short the night of the big game. The most most pivotal and climactic parts were those that were edited out! This is a letter to my baby. She will head off to college and leave my husband and I as empty nesters – after raising 4 children. This is not something I’m looking forward to and so I put all my pride and joy in this girl in the following letter:

To Brecken Johanson, October 2015, Rocky Mountain High School Senior Soccer Night

Miracles happen everyday… We’ve been blessed to live with our miracle for more than seventeen years now. When the neonatal intensive care team burst through the door only minutes after you were born, none of us would have placed bets that you would have lived as full and rich and active a life as you have. But you are a tough chick! You were tough (and blue) when they placed that intubation tube down your throat. Three hours later you were in our arms and pink as a cherry.

Tough, scrappy, fighter… all are words I’ve heard describing your game play over they years. I prefer to describe you as a Weeble who wobbled, but just wouldn’t fall down. That’s one thing that has always been amazing about you… You just won’t go down! I smiled from ear to ear when other parents lovingly nicknamed you “the Brecken-ator” or “the Breck Wall” when you played in the backfield. Confidence never ran higher on the sideline. But you were still my Weeble who wobbled, but wouldn’t go down because I knew you off the field. You are kind, sensitive, loyal, and true as a friend and family member.

As you got older and moved into more advanced levels of play, I heard words like “brilliant,” “incredible,” “flow,” and “smartest player I’ve ever coached.” You were still my Weeble… just the one who it wasn’t wise to tick off. As a parent, I felt satisfaction every time someone tried to take you out and you would take it to them, take it from them, and take it at them! Lesson learned every time: don’t judge a prize by its size.

At the highlight of your soccer experience, we were standing at the National Soccer Championships in St. Louis, Missouri in the middle of waving flags and pomp and circumstance. And you played your heart out to show the country that Idaho can contend on the field. But once off the field, you were the most humble of all players. Ever, the Weeble.

Breck, you’re a whole lot of awesome and amazingness in one compact little package. We are blessed to be your parents and thankful that the Lord heard our pleas for a mighty miracle that day seventeen years ago in July.