Letters to my Daughter: October 24, 2017

I measure the passing of time by your illnesses, small victories in my day, the presence of new teeth pushing through your tender gums, the way we both sleep through the night. All of it adds up to our life together. Mundane and beautiful.

I have plans for us. I imagine us with passports visiting Canada. You'll have a small backpack and carefully assembled outfits, I'll have a medium case on wheels for the bulk of our things. We'll be explorers, experiencing the world from two different points of our shared life. I'll be slowly encroaching middle-age as you grow into yourself, I'll hold your hand and anything will be possible.

I'll chase you through parks, tourist destinations and swanky cafés. We'll eat from the same plate and watch sunsets together. I'll brush your hair, rabbit soft, and it will emphasize the smallness of your features. Your beauty and youth will bring me to tears. I want your childhood to be full. I want you to be able to look back and know we managed without your father. I need to know there's life after gut-wrenching disappointment.

My life is modest. I go to work and leave you with a babysitter and her therapy dog, Fergi. Fergi follows you throughout the house and into the sunroom where your toys are, she lies down next to your pac-n-play as you sleep and finds Mary when you wake up. During the two days you're not there, Fergi lies down in front of the couch Mary changes you on and waits for you to come back. She welcomes us every morning with full body tremors and whines.

I go from one small joy to another, hoping it will sustain me and it always falls short. Your godmother gave us her youngest daughter's clothes, a large garbage bag, and it made me incredibly happy until I brought it home and saw your father. I folded your new things to the sound of keyboard clicks and silence. He didn't acknowledge me and I wanted to dissolve into the carpet. Your gently used clothes turned into soiled rags in my hands and I couldn't breathe. I counted to one-hundred in fives, over and over in my head, but the tightness in my chest never went away. His keyboard clicked into the silence, you continued to sleep in the room we share. Loneliness eats away at my sense of self, leaving me hollow.