What to write to your grandchild (when you don’t know where to start)

You've thought about it more than once: you'd like to leave your grandchild something in your own words. Then you sit down, write "Dear ___," and the pen stops. A whole life to draw on, and somehow nothing comes.

That blank page is almost universal, and it has a simple cause — you're trying to write The Letter, something wise and final and worthy of the moment. Skip that. The notes your grandchild will actually treasure aren't speeches. They're small, true, specific things, written down before they slip away.

Here's how to get unstuck.

Write one small thing, not one big thing

Don't try to sum up your love or your hopes for their whole life. Pick a single moment from this week or this year and put it on paper. One paragraph is plenty. A year of one-paragraph notes becomes something they'll read cover to cover; one perfect letter you never finish becomes nothing.

Prompts for when you're staring at the page

• What they're like right now. The way they say a particular word wrong. What they're obsessed with this month. How they greet you at the door.
• A story about their parent at the same age. Your grandchild has never met the six-year-old version of their mom or dad. You're one of the only people who can introduce them.
• An ordinary day. Not the holidays — a regular afternoon. The ordinary days are the ones that disappear, and the ones they'll most want back.
• Something you believe. A small piece of how you see the world that you'd want them to have. Not a lecture — a sentence.
• Something they did that made you laugh. Write down the actual thing they said. The exact words are the gold.

Reach for the specific, not the sentimental

Compare these two:

I love you so much and I hope you always know it.

You fell asleep in the car still holding the sparkler from the fireworks. I carried you in and you wouldn't let go of the stick.

The first could be written to anyone. The second could only be about them — and years from now, it's the one that will stop them cold. Specifics carry the feeling; you don't have to spell it out.

It doesn't have to be finished, or profound

No one is grading this. A crossed-out word is fine. "I don't know why this stuck with me, but it did" is a great way to start a note. The point isn't polish — it's that the moment got written down at all, by you, while you still remembered it.

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If you'd like a little structure around this, that's the whole idea behind Trove Notes for grandparents: we ask a few good questions about what's been happening, draft a note in your own words, and save it — and once a year it becomes a keepsake book the family can hold. It's also something you can give to the other grandparents in your grandchild's life.

But you don't need us to start. You need a piece of paper and one small, true thing. Write that down today. Write another next week. That's the whole secret.