A flash drive for my son's twentieth birthday

I saw that someone, when their baby was born, created a Gmail account for the child and started writing them emails. Every birthday, every Christmas, random moments in between. When the kid grew up, they gave them access to the inbox. The child read all the emails and it was incredibly touching.

This really resonated with me. When my son Eduard was born, I wanted to do the same thing. But I just didn't. There was some block. I kept telling myself I'd start tomorrow. Tomorrow never came.

What I did do instead was start recording voice messages. Sometimes just a minute, sometimes two. Whenever I think about what we're going through with Eduard or as a family, and it's a meaningful moment, I grab my phone, open the voice recorder, and just talk.

I talk about what's happening right now. What Eduard is like at this moment. What he said today that made us laugh. How much we love him. How proud we are of him. And then I stop recording and move on with my day.

I also talk about the hard parts. He's two and he already gives us a run for our money. His childhood, which he'll experience as this one continuous thing, lasted a completely different amount of time for us. There were obstacles. Things we struggled with. Things we figured out.

One day, when he's older, I'll put it all on a flash drive and give it to him. He'll hear everything. From me directly. Not written words on a screen. My actual voice. The way I sounded when he was small.

I know that if I got something like this from my parents, maybe for my twentieth birthday, it would break me. Hearing their voices from when I was a baby. Hearing what they went through. What they thought about. Hearing that they cared. How they talked about me when I couldn't understand a word.

So he has something to look forward to.