"You turned out good."

The other day I got a message. A short, sweet, to the point message.

Unsolicited.

Unexpected.

And, as it turns out, something I had been waiting a lifetime to hear.

"You turned out good."

As simple as that.

And those four little words have made me smile, cry, & ponder so much in the last few days.

It all started innocently enough.

I sent a link to a friend. An old friend. OK, I friend there is a little "history" with. You know, the kind of history that took a young girl's heart a while to get over. Quite a while.

The link showed my kids several years ago during an Irish Dance performance. I shared for St. Patrick's Day, with a simple confession: "I used to be an Irish Dance Mom!" More than a brag link, it was a bit of my past, a bit of, "Oh my, this is what I did each & every St. Pat's for what seemed a lifetime." A bit of, "I sit here tonight, on this St. Patrick's Day, not in a pub with my friends sharing a pint, but at the kitchen island, alone, with the now adult son off on Holiday in Maui & the ever diligent daughter doing a mountain of homework on her course to be Valedictorian." This is what I used to be.

And where am I now; what have I become.

It took a while for a return message. Of course, I just figured the link had been viewed & no comment was warranted. I wasn't expecting a reaction. I was just proud of my kids & their accomplishments.

The following day after work, after a long, grueling day at the job I do not loving what I do, there was a message waiting. Those simple little words.

"You turned out good."

Words that melted my heart. Words that reached out. Words that healed a little scar I had quite forgotten. Words that brought out a moment I thought I had successfully put away in a box & secured in a dark corner.

I remembered what was to be my kids' last performance at an annual St. Patrick's Day Benefit. It would be one of the last times my father ever saw them dance; shortly before they retired & a year before he died. And I remembered coming up behind my father & son sitting at a table together & overhearing the conversation. And I remembered the pain as I heard my father telling my son how proud he was of him...that he was not at all like his mother...me. That he wouldn't waste his life, that he would never amount to nothing like her. Like me. And I remembered watching my son pull back, stand up to his almost 6 foot height & say, "I don't have to listen to this" & walk away.

And I flashed forward to the 12 weeks I waited in the hospital as my father lingered before passing. The 12 weeks I visited, attempted to bring comfort, sat quietly in the corner knitting because it reminded him of his mother & the memory of her "click click clicking" away in his childhood. The time I sat secretly & selfishly waiting for closure; waiting for a bonding moment; waiting for just one snippet of peace in what had been a lifetime of tension. Waiting for a quiet moment of father daughter revelation that would leave a smile.

It never came.

I'm not sure what exactly I was waiting for. Perhaps the inner child in me looking for her daddy to be close; to say "I love you...I am proud of you." Words that never existed in our relationship; a relationship fraught with anger, disappointment, abuse. A relationship that formed a young girl who needed to be strong, who pushed people away, who was afraid to be close to anyone; a young girl who fell head over heels for a time & was clueless as to how to make a relationship work.

A young girl who loved....& lost. A girl who grew up, dealt with the past, moved on, & broke the cycle. A girl, who in coming into her own, managed to raise a couple incredible kids but never realized she was raising herself.

You turned out good.

The words that came from someone who knew me back when I was fractured but didn't know why. From someone who saw the self-destructive behavior, but who never knew the back-story. From someone who has been a quiet observer, only recently seeing who I have become, but who knows where I have been.

And it means the world to me.

Not because I was looking for approval...but because I finally got it. Not because of what I have done, but because of who I am.