.... But she still wonders why...

(picture is of my daughters father Dominic... the source of MUCH conversation for us today....)


Today, my daughter had a session of crying and asking me questions. No... this was about Spongebob, or life, or even her new obsession, Michael Jackson. It was about her father. She asked me what he looked like, and if she'd ever met him. I told her that he had stayed w/ us for about a week and a half when she was 2... and that he was handsome. I showed her a picture (which I am SURE that I had shown her before... )... and then began the waterworks....

She went on and on about how she had to explain to her friends that she didn't have a daddy. And that she didn't even know what his name was. She said that she was the only person who she KNEW that didn't have their father or that had never seen him... I told her that was ABSOLUTELY not true...

... with astonishment in her eyes, she asked, " Who else mommi?"... I paused, took her little face into my hand... and said " Me." I explained to her how I had never layed eyes on my biological father and that even though she and I BOTH had his last name, he was a stranger. I told her that I completely understood her pain... and that I would see what I could do to get her into contact w/ her father....

... This is going to be hard...

She came home and wrote him a letter... telling him that she loved him... andmissed him... and that she was going to come see him if he didn't see her... She drew pictures of him, and of him and her, and of us three together smiling.... holding hands... and being a family.

... I don't tell her the bad stuff... or that I keep him away in effort to protect her... I don't let her know that he does nothing to take care of her... or that if he wanted to put forth the effort, we COULD HAVE been that family that she'd just scratched out on her pad... She doesn't need to know these things... because in the long run... it'll make her dislike ME more...

Instead I tell her, somethings just aren't meant... and I'm sure he loves her almost as much as I do... I promise her that I'll do all that I can... I send him and email ... and I kiss her goodnight... Telling her somethings just aren't meant to be... and that he and I will never be a couple...

... But she still wonders, " Why?"....