Quote:
Originally Posted by vaffla
Any criticism would be greatly appreciated, as English is my second language  :
Dear T,
You are not my mother.
You did not create me and your body did not give life to mine.
You did not raise me up; you have not fed me, nor were you there when the baby I once was have become the person I am today.
But you are nourishing my soul
You are making me grow
There are many things that you give me, but two of them stand out for me – your love and your emotional presence. You are present with me like no one in my life has ever been before, and that means the world to me.
You are helping the person I am today to become the person I will be tomorrow, and thus you are raising me up.
With your love, you are helping me become, and thus you are creating new life in me.
And so, despite the fact that I am not your offspring,
Inside my heart
You are my mother.
I am so lucky to have you be part of my life, and I am forever grateful.
Much love,
Vaffla |
Vaffla,
that is a wonderful letter. Your thoughts come through perfectly, and I'm sure your T will be very happy indeed when she reads it.
You did ask specifically for ESL criticism, and that's the only reason I'm
going to mention this - "the baby I once was have become the person I am today" should be "the baby I once was became the person I am today", and "raise me up"/"raising me up" should probably just be "raise me"/"raising me" (because "raise up" has to do with physically moving things around). Those minor points don't make your letter hard to understand, they are very minor errors, and other than that, your English is pretty darn native-like as far as I can judge. (I'm sorry if I'm being a showoff, but I do teach English grammar at university to ESL/EFL students, so this is something I know something about, and as an ESL user myself I know that it can be important to get a confirmation that there aren't any language errors.)
And you do have a beautiful turn of phease.