Hey, you! C'mere, let me give you a hug. You're not too big for that yet, are you?
Of course you're not. You're, well, still tiny, still only one day old. This one day, twenty-three years ago, when you left us, your mom and I, just a day after you arrived.
The only place your grew up was in our hearts.
This day, and all those before and after. The days I dreamed of and hoped for and never had. Dreamed of all the things we'd do together; good...and bad, happy and sad, cheerful or angry or bored or silly.
They never happened, did they, dearest?
Now there's only this day, the day you climb up the dark stairwell and sit beside me as I cry.
Because I still miss you.
Oh, yes; there's your little brother and little sister. Yes, they're great. I love them to pieces, and always will.
But today is about you, the big sister they never had, the little girl and young woman I never got to know.
This year was even harder because I'm not just missing you but missing your mom. The first time in twenty-three years we haven't had a partner to console each other, a friend and lover to give and receive comfort.
I called your mom today. Told her that she was in my heart, and hoped that she could find some solace in that, find some peace. It's hard on her, y'know. She carried you closer than her own skin, slept behind your heartbeat for three-quarters of a year. She dies a little every time this year thinking of and missing you.
And so do I, in a different way.
Because every year, every time this day comes, I look into the darkness for the tiny flame that was your too-brief stay with us, to remember you, to grieve for you. To wish against all the years that we had another chance, knowing we never will.
To have the years of you, child and girl and woman grown, father and daughter, loving and beloved.
So. Sit beside me for a little while. I promise I won't try and hold you when you have to go. But just now, for this time, just for this day, let me sit and dream the dream I dreamed, the dream of the you that never came.
Bryn Rose Gellar
March 1, 2002 - March 2, 2002
