Aim Carefully
This year, my mom turns sixty. I’ll turn thirty.
But today, my mother-in-law turns fifty.
Time is beginning to feel real.
It’s sobering to watch the people who raised you enter new decades, moving further down a road you’ll walk yourself before long. It’s also deeply satisfying. They are living out what they spent decades building: big families, grandchildren, and friends who genuinely want to be with them.
Especially when you’re young, I think you should spend serious attention on where you’re actually aiming your life. What are the metrics to measure “success,” and when?
This isn’t another syrupy self-help sermon. I just want to take a moment to honor my mother-in-law on her big day. She’s remarkable, and I want you to know why.
All of us a year ago at Christmas - couple days before Ezra was born
They say that when you’re looking for a woman to marry, look for a mom you admire.
I did. Her name’s Amanda.
Alongside her remarkable husband - my father-in-law Dan who deserves a lot of words I’ll share with you in the future - she raised and homeschooled eight children. She’s a paramedic and community midwife who delivered both of our sons - and hundreds of other babies for friends and neighbors.
She’s also a gifted writer. She just finished A Time To Be Born, which is funny, profound, and wholesome in a way that’s hard to find anymore. (If you enjoy James Herriot, you’d love this.)
Her fourth son, Christopher, was born with severe autism. As a young child, he was non-verbal. She determined to give 100% to educate, love, and believe in him. She spent hours a day working with him, looking for clues, praying for little keys. Every night she’d put him to bed and sing “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.” One day, at age six, he miraculously formed a simple sentence and said it out loud. And then another, and another! But I won’t spoil the whole story…
He learned to speak, read, write, and express himself beautifully. Today he’s literally reaching millions with a message of hope for his condition - for whatever condition we have, and I’m increasingly convinced we each do have one.
(Watch this video of him singing that same song he heard every night as a child, and sharing his testimony in front of thousands of people at our thanksgiving festival last year. There wasn’t a dry eye in the whole building.)
Once, while helping me move some old black & white family photographs at my grandparents’ cottage, he paused and asked: “I wonder if the world used to be black and white back in the old days, when these people were living.”
That’s Kippy. Always got a fresh take on what the rest of us overlook.
She is his rock.
She’s a rock for all of us.
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She cares a great deal about great environments. Her home is beautiful. But I’d say her particular gift is the “software” I wrote about - bringing people together: holidays, dinners, family traditions. She has an incredible eye for making moments and memories out of the little things.
Every family needs glue. She fills the role exceptionally well—almost too well:)
Helen is the oldest of her siblings (all brothers except for one baby sister) and was indispensable to her mom. I knew marrying her would be a big transition. It’s hard to let your first daughter go - I can imagine. My in-laws have done it with such grace. But I have to remind them sometimes: they didn’t lose her, they adopted a son.
Mom is one of the many reasons I am very rich.
Not in money or things, but in the most valuable currency : relationships of love, with people who would go through anything with you. And you would do the same for them.
That’s what aiming carefully produces. Not a perfect life. But a full one, measured in people and a purpose, not possessions. Do that every day for a long time. You’ll be very rich.
I love you, Mom. Happy birthday. ❤️
-Isaac
P.S. If you’re interested, I highly recommend her weekly newsletter where she writes to her daughters (and a few thousand others) and chronicles Christopher’s journey.