I know I need to write this to you, and I don’t want to because it makes me so sad. I have been desperately avoiding my feelings about climate change, for many years, but especially and with greater intensity every year since you were born.

Sent on
December 11, 2021
by
Lilly Hankins
Send Your Own Message

My darling Cassidy,

I know I need to write this to you, and I don’t want to because it makes me so sad. I have been desperately avoiding my feelings about climate change, for many years, but especially and with greater intensity every year since you were born. Last week the IPCC 6 report came out, laying out clearer than ever before that humanity needs to act immediately to stop destroying the earth and burning fossil fuels. We need to go to zero emissions by 2050. In 2050, you’ll be about the age that I am now (36). So I’m writing this to 36-year old you.
I am so, so, so very sorry. I’m so sorry that we don’t have the world that you deserve, and that me and the other generations before yours didn’t act fast enough to prevent things from getting as bad as they are now (in 2021). I ache with hope deep down in my bones that if you’re reading this in 2050, we’ve made some truly dramatic shifts. I’m scared we haven’t, and the world you live in might look unrecognizable to our current selves. If that is the case, I hope you have had decades of joy and are still able to find it, whatever that looks like. I hope you know how deeply I love you, and that as painful as it is to know that you and the rest of your generation have to face this pain, I’m still so glad you are here and I get to know you, with whatever time and in whatever way we get.
But mostly I want you to know that I am writing this as a promise to you. I promise to choose hope, and to use hope as my axe. I’ve been feeling a lot of despair lately, and I’m working on moving through that to the other side. Being stuck in despair won’t help you and won’t change anything. So here is my promise: I will fuel myself with love for you, and with love for that which we can save. I know there will be times I get stuck in the grief of all we have lost and will lose. I don’t know how to make a difference yet, and I know I will get overwhelmed by how big it all is and everything that needs to be done. But I promise to keep coming back to doing, whenever I can. Right now I’m excited about helping push for high speed rail in the Pacific Northwest, and about connecting with and helping other parents think about these things so we can all be doing what we can instead of being frozen. I’m sure there will be other things, and there will be lots of things that get in the way. But I am going to show up, make noise about it, be uncomfortable, try things, change things about my behavior, talk to other people about the changes I’m making, and try and find other people to build and fight and push with. I’m going to do what I can. I’m going to try for this: “you have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” (Dr. Angela Davis).
I hope we can read this together and see what has changed. Either way, please know that I love you from the deepest parts of my being and am always no matter what so glad I got this chance to be your mom.
I love you,
Mommy
Share on:
 
Send Your Own Message

More Messages to the Future

 

Dear Tomorrow,

I promise to reach out to more people to ditch driving and consider using public transportation. I promise to convince Marin markets that sensible policies in density and mixed use planning will further enhance everyone’s quality of life.
 

Dear Tomorrow,

I promise to try to set up crowd funding for grants to people with realistic proposals to fight climate change.
 

Dear Madeleine,

First of all I hope we succeeded in our dream that yours is a better world than the world of 2021. Today, the forests are burning, the sea levels are rising and wild weather is everywhere. But we are working hard and I’m confident we will succeed.
 

To all the children of the future and those who love them,

While there is still breath in this body I will give of my soul and my time and energy to making the world a better place, for you, and all the beautiful living beings of this world.
 

Our Promise

I will turn my gas transmission into an electric car!
 

Queridos nietas/nietos,

Creo que debo hacer más. Por ello, he decidido escribir esta breve carta para empezar un proceso en el que vaya escribiendo más cartas, conforme vaya teniendo más claridad de mis posibles contribuciones.
 

Dear Gabriel,

When the worst consequences of climate change still feel far away today, or the barriers to acting on climate change seem steep today, I do not think about today. I think about you, and your world when you are my age.
 

My darling girls,

I can be brave enough to wake up.
 

Dear James,

More importantly, what are we doing to better our planet and everyone who lives in it?
 

Dear my future family,

I will promise to help climate change as much as I can.
 

Dear Jack,

Right now you are only a little over 5 weeks old, but you have truly changed my whole world. Your Mom and I always say that we thought we loved before you were born, but now that you have come into the world and we met you, our ability to love just expanded exponentially.
 

My dear Honeys,

I think every parent believes that their child’s future is worth protecting – because I know the power of this force in me and what I am willing to do.
View All Messages

Send Your Own Message