To my beloved Rebecca;
It is incredible the amount of love I have for you, despite
the fact that you only exist in my heart.
When I was younger, I always took it for granted that some day, I would
get to be your daddy, and knowing that I will never have the chance to meet you
is a hurt I carry with me every day. I
am truly sorry for that, and I only hope that since the world never saw fit to
bring us together, you were given a chance at life with another loving father
who can give you all the things I never would have been able to, plus all of
the love that is rightfully yours.
In truth, it is probably for the best that you don’t have to
grow up with me; I don’t really have
much that I could have given you. I’m by
no means a rich man, having wasted my 20s in dead-end jobs that don’t really
even pay the bills. I don’t have a lot
of experience to go on, since I never really had a good father figure to be my
role model, nor did I ever have siblings or pets to take care of when I was
growing up. I wouldn’t even be able to
give you much in the way of relatives, since I have pretty much estranged
myself from my entire family.
In fact, you are no doubt more important to me than I ever
would have been to you. You would have
given me purpose in my life, someone who depends on me and needs me to turn my
life around. Someone who needs a family
to grow up with to force me to rekindle the relationships with what few family
members I have. Someone who needs healthy
father who will be around to guide you
through your childhood and into adulthood, who can get up, go outside, and play
with his young daughter. I need you to
be the catalyst for all the changes I need to make in my life, but am too lazy,
scared, or just plain complacent to make.
But, I’m 30 now, and am trying very hard to come to terms
with the fact that you will never be a reality for me. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to fully
accept that you will never be my baby, that I’ll never get to experience your
birth, your first day of school, your many, many birthday parties, graduation, marriage,
or the arrival of your own children. I
don’t know that I would be able to find the energy to keep on living if I were
to truly give up on you. And I guess
that is the one thing that I would definitely have been able to give you; a
belief in you that would never, ever go away.
I hope that wherever you might be in the universe, you are
happy there.
Love,
Daddy
