Daughter Dearest

21 years ago today, everything changed for me. A beautiful, enchanting creature came into my life and I suddenly became responsible for someone other than myself.

I was only 21 at the time. I had no idea what I was doing. I still don't. 

I do know that there has been nothing more difficult, magnificent, complex, agonizing, rewarding, daunting or awe-inspiring than these years.

I know that I became the person I am through trying to navigate the often tumultuous, sometimes placid, always challenging waters of parenthood.

Half a lifetime ago, I became a person who learned to:

* Be a safe place at a time when I never felt more vulnerable

* Hold back my own choked sobs while desperately trying to soothe another  

* Put the needs of someone else so far ahead, that hers became mine

* Feign knowledge. And patience. And strength.

* Calm fears with a serenity I seldom felt

* Feel every heartache, every victory, every anguish of someone else more keenly than I felt my own

* Long for the right words to say, but make due with all the wrong ones

* Know that giving up was never an option, even when it's all I wanted to do

And because of it all my life is richer. Fuller. More miraculous and amazing than I ever imagined was possible.

I got someone who loves me for my insufficiencies, my weaknesses, my failings. Who believes in me as much as I believe in her.

Happy birthday, Fantasia. Happy birthday to the girl who changed my world. 

No gift I could offer could compare to what you have given to me.