You may have noticed that letter 4 is missing. Letter 4 is First Heartbreak and hasn't been read.

The next set to be posted will be the engagement/wedding ones - probably with part 13 or 14.

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5. Eighteenth Birthday

February 28, 1984

Dear Clark,

Eighteen. I can't believe my baby is all grown up. You're probably a senior in high school now, getting ready to graduate in a few months.

I wish your Dad and I could be there to see you. How you've grown. What you look like. Do you still have that one curl that always wants to fall over the top of your forehead? How tall are you? Taller than Dad, I'm sure. Are your eyes still that wonderful brown color or have they changed over the years? Did you have good grades in high school? You always did so well in school when you were little, I would imagine you've continued to do so.

Have you been able to find out more about your heritage? I wonder that. If someday there won't be a way for you to find out more about your roots. You have roots in Smallville, of course, and the farm should be yours when you graduate, but your biological roots.

Your Dad and I wouldn't have loved you more if you were our biological child. You know that right? We wanted children so badly, and when Doc Brown told us we couldn't have kids, it broke both our hearts. But then we found you. We fell in love with you the minute we saw those big brown eyes and that cute little diaper they had you in. Now, you can't tell me I'm embarrassing you, because you probably aren't reading this to anyone else. Wayne and Maggie should have put all of the old baby albums somewhere safe. I told Maggie to make sure your wife gets to see them someday.

Do you have a girlfriend? Do you have a date tonight? Or a party with friends? Do you have foster – or even adoptive – parents who care enough about you to do those things? Oh, Clark, I hope so.

Remember everything I've said in other letters. We love you, Clark. We're proud of you. Be careful. Guard your heart. Learn to love.

We've both loved you since the beginning, Clark, and we'll love you till the end.

Love,
Mom
 
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6. Graduation

May 1984

Clark – my high school graduate!

I'm so proud of you! I try to picture you in your cap and gown, but it's so hard. I don't know what you'll look like by the time you get this.

I wonder what kind of activities you were in these last four years. Did you play football? Baseball? Baseball was always your favorite, but that might be hard for you. What about the school paper? You've talked about wanting to be a reporter for years. Were you able to do that? Were you editor? What else did you do?

I hope, I pray that you were able to be yourself – the Clark that I knew and loved and that nothing happened to make you shut yourself away from others. That you have friends who love you, maybe even a girlfriend who does.

Are you going to move back to the farmhouse? Have you and Wayne sold it for some reason? I hope not. I know you don't really want to be a farmer, but I really hope you wait until you're older to make that decision. That's why Wayne has to sign off on it until you're 25. I don't want you to do something that you'll regret and look back at later and wish you hadn't.

But, now, my big, strong and handsome son... you're a high school graduate. You're moving out into the big, wide world. I hope you're going to college. Your dad and I always wanted you to, you know. I know I really didn't use my degree much living on the farm but I used lots of other things that I learned in the process of getting that degree. Did you know your father had an Associates of Science degree from Kansas Community College? He thought he needed it to impress me. Silly man. He had a 3.8 GPA though. He often considered going back – or maybe doing correspondence classes and earning an Ag degree of some kind. He was a smart man, your father, though most people never saw that side of him. Sometimes people don't look beyond the exterior. They saw a slightly overweight farmer from Kansas corn country and his little farm wife, but we were so much more than that, Clark, and so are you.

Learn to look beyond the exterior shell that people put up. Learn who they really are inside before making a judgment about them. And whether you go to college or not, never stop learning. Read. Write. Read some more. Read about all kinds of things – not just whatever your chosen career field is. Even try a sappy romance novel every now and then – just so you can say you did. 

We're proud of you, Clark. Whatever you choose to do, we'll be proud of you.

Stay strong. Continue to learn. Guard your heart. Learn to love.

We have loved you since the beginning, dear graduate, and we will love you till the end.

Love,
Mom
 

7. First day of college

My college student,
I do hope you're reading this as you prepare to start college and not because you've decided college isn't for you and you just decided that you want to see what your old Mom had to say.

Are you living at home and going to the community college in New Albany? Are you living on campus at Midwest or some other big university? Are you playing sports of some kind? Football maybe, or baseball?

Is your girlfriend going to the same school as you? Do you have a girlfriend? Did you have a high school sweetheart but because you're moving across the country to go to school [or she is], you decided it was time to move on? Is your heart broken?

Oh – goodness, look at me going on again.

I know you will do well at whatever you do. Do you still dream of being a reporter? Do you want to work at the Daily Planet? I remember PBS had a special on it one day and you watched the whole thing – all two hours of it. Two whole hours on the history of the Daily Planet and you – at eight years old – watched all 120 minutes. I still shake my head at that.

Have you moved on to another dream? Do you want to be a teacher or a doctor or, heaven forbid, a lawyer? Okay – if you do decide to be a lawyer and not one of the ones that all the jokes are made about. Do you want to be a businessman? I can't quite see that for you, but I suppose it's possible. A musician? Well, you never could sing, but I don't suppose that means you couldn't learn or learn to play an instrument of some kind.

Do you have the money for college? Is there enough in what we left you? We told Wayne that we wanted you to go to college and there was enough money – I hope – set aside for that without touching any money renting out the farm or whatever else may have generated. That money is specifically for tuition and room and board and can only be dispersed to an approved institution of higher education. That's it. The way we had to set it up limits that – don't ask me to explain it – I didn't understand it either. It also means that you won't be able to access the money for living expenses or whatever else you may need if you live off campus for some reason. Maybe you're living at home or maybe you'll marry before college is over and then, unfortunately, it can't help you with bills. Maybe by the time you read this, laws will have changed and you can do something else with it. You should get anything that's left in the account either when you graduate or turn 28, whichever comes first.

Did you get scholarships? I hope you might have. Because that would leave you more of what we left to help you land on your feet after graduation. It can be hard – that time between getting that piece of parchment and actually getting a job that pays the bills. I was already married to your father and planning on helping with the farm so it wasn't as difficult for us, but I know some of my friends struggled.

You will do well. I know that.

We love you, Clark. Never stop learning. Guard your heart. Learn to love.

We've loved you since the beginning, my college student, and we'll love you till the end.

Love,
Mom