Ava,
You made my day today. Really, you made my life — again — but that’s what you always do.
This morning, while I was in the midst of getting breakfast and lunch and taking out the trash and the recycling, you called to me from the other room. I came and stood in the doorway. Snuggling on the sofa under a thin blanket, you asked, “Will you cuddle with me for a few minutes?”
Ava, the relationship between us is old and has been repeated billions of times. You are my daughter. I am your father. What I am to you, and what you are to me, is a thing that all people everywhere understand without the need for language. I walk alongside you with your tiny, warm hand in mine, or I kneel to catch your embrace when we’re reunited even after only a few hours. I get a glimpse of your eyes in the rear view mirror as we drive home from horseback riding lessons down the long, dusty gravel road near the lake.
Which is just to say that what you mean to me is poorly captured by an understanding of the fact of our biological connection. It’s inexplicable not because it’s complex, but because it’s illogical. It doesn’t make sense.
Last evening I found a small spiral-bound notebook that had a pen clipped to its cover. I’d seen you writing in it earlier in the day while you watched A Boy Named Charlie Brown on TV (I stayed home with you; you had strep). I opened the notebook to the page saved by the pen and saw there a list of spelling words. Like this:
an a – n an
at a – t at
catch c – a – t – c – h catch
Who can explain why my chest tightened and my eyes began to well up with tears as I read down your short list? Surely a list of the very same words, penned by any other six-year-old girl in the world, would have passed through my hands with little notice. And in a perfectly-ordered, absolutely explicable world, your list would have shared that fate. Instead, I called out to your mom to tell her about this minor treasure and immediately found I was at a loss to describe it fully. It was, after all, just a notebook into which you’d inscribed some short words. I could explain the fact of it. I held it in my hands and heard my own voice explaining it to your mom, but I faltered while trying to convey how meaningful that notebook was.
I rejoice at discovering evidence of your passing through the world. Spelling lists. Drawings of horses or dolphins or butterflies or anything at all. Stuffed animals purposefully arranged and posed on your bed or around a tea set on the rug in your room. These little hints and traces of you thrill me. Beyond reason.