I lay on the floor with my chin cupped in the fold of my arms. I am watching my three-year-old daughter. She is playing with her blocks. I wonder what she is saying to them, as she prattles along in the language known only to her. I remember being that young. I remember living in my imagination. I am transported through time, to the years when my imagination was all that I had. My escape. I wonder if she will have the same imagination. I wonder what her hopes and her dreams will be. I wonder what her trials and tribulations will be. I wonder if she will ever be potty trained.
As I lay there, I think about Sept. 11. I think about the world around us. The world that she is growing up in. The world that she will someday make her own. I wonder if I have ever truly made the world my own. As I think, I realize, happily, that I have. I have made my own indelible mark on the world. I look into the beautiful doe eyes of the mark that is mine.
I think about Morrighan and how my life will seem to her as she grows into womanhood. Will she scoff at my ideas? Will she embrace them? Will she see our marriage as a template for what can be achieved or as something to be surpassed?
I am so curious about what she will become. I can already see a few seeds of her adult personality. She is a lot her father. She is some of me. She is mostly herself. She is stubborn and sweet and imaginative. She is curious and verbal. She loves to hear stories and to make them up. She is shy around her peers. She is a people watcher. A writer perhaps?
I think about myself and about being a mother. I don’t know what kind of parent I am. I wonder if I will ever really know. Most likely not. I can only do my best and hope that my best is enough. Is it ever enough?
I look at her and think about how much she has grown in the last three years and how all the time passed so quickly. I wish that I had paid more attention while it was happening. I wonder, how could it have slipped away so quickly? Then the dog starts barking to go out, the cat starts meowing to come in and Morrighan looks up at me and starts whining about how hungry she is.... |
