The BloggerPlay Short Story Series, Entry # 1

This was her first birthday since it happened. I wanted it to be as special as we could make it. I let her choose where we were going. She was very sure she wanted to go to Los Angeles, more specifically Hollywood, more specifically the Galactic Studios Theme Park. She's my princess and the only reason I have held onto any shred of sanity. She gets everything she wants this year.

I don't know if it was the jet-lag, just being in an unfamiliar place, or the sudden realization that this just wasn't exactly as things ought to be, but she was very difficult this morning. We needed an early start so I tried waking her at 6:45 so we could have breakfast downstairs before leaving for the park. She was having none of it and sounded off by whining and it turned quickly to screaming and crying. Even though I am doing the best I can, this is a moment that makes you wonder if you are just the worst parent, ever. With everything we've been through for the past 7 months, that doubt has some legs.

When it happened, both my sister and my wife's mother offered to take her for a while. Would she be happier today if I had done that? Would I? And I guess more importantly, would we have been healthier for it? I decided no. There hasn't been a day that I don't wonder, daydream, sometimes for 20 or more minutes, if I made the right decision. Was I being selfish? Did I think I couldn't continue on if I lost both of them? Was it more for her interest? Would she be able to thrive in an environment away from me, so soon after?

I would say we are both doing as well as can be expected. The past 7 months has seen its ups and downs. My daily mantra is that we are both stronger for it. But 9 year olds don't have mantras. I have never known how she has dealt with this. In reading I have done, they say that children block trauma. I have prayed this is true. No parent wants their child to hurt.

Today, as I mentioned, started off as a 'down'. Her mood didn't improve in the car to the park. In the park, she would shirk my touch. Her posture was more of sulk. Things improved at lunch. We talked. A lot. The sparkle came back into her eye. This is the Eleni I know. When she is gone, I miss her tremendously. Her smile, when she is a normal, unaffected little girl, that's the reason a man becomes a father.

After lunch, we were warmer with one another. In line, I placed my arms on her shoulders and just hung on her. We screamed and yelled and laughed more. And then it happened. She looked at me with those brown eyes and told me this was her best birtday, ever. I took a long, deep breath and stared up toward the sky. I almost lost it. She saved me by seeing the 'Mona Lisa' cut-out, grabbing my hand and running me over. We had to stop at everyone of these at Circus World in Florida when her mother and I took her for her 4th birthday. They had always been her favorite.

We got through a small crowd of people on the walking path and finally reached Mona. She walked to the back, stepped up on the stool and put her face right into the opening. It was as I was taking the picture, at the exact moment that I pressed the shutter button, that it hit me. With that coy smile, her hair slightly out of place, but as though it was done intentionally, her calling out to me to take the picture, already: She is her mother.