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Happy Birthday to Mommy
Dear Hope,
There's a story I've been meaning to tell you and today feels like the day to do it.
Once there were a bunch of guys making lunch in a firehouse. The kitchen was upstairs and if we weren't on the truck that's where you'd usually find us. When the bay doors were open people would sometimes wander in, so to keep an eye on things we installed a camera with a monitor upstairs. That day I looked at that monitor and there was this girl standing downstairs. It was a fuzzy black and white picture but it was enough to make me say something like "Who is THAT?"
(Keep in mind, baby girl, that these are exactly the kind of guys you're going to want to steer clear of when you get older.)
Your Uncle looked at the screen and said "That's my little sister, you a--" well, the conversation ended there for the most part. The conversation, but not the interest.
It turned out that Brian had locked his keys in his car that day and his sister had come to the rescue from downdown with spare keys. Most people have AAA or something like that for situations like these but that's not the way his family worked. They took care of each other.
She ended up staying for lunch since we were eating. She was wearing a black business suit with a purple top underneath and her hair was up off her neck with these chop stick looking things sticking out and she was completely out of my league.
Your mother claims to have very little memory of this, and I can't say I blame her because we were just a bunch of idiots and she was this amazing girl with a smile that lit up the room and a comfort level that fascinated me.
For one thing she could eat. I've always been pretty confused by girls who just picked at their food and insisted they never got hungry. This was no salad eating, lettuce flicking girl. She ate heartily and when someone, maybe it was me, commented on it she just shrugged and said growing up with three brothers would do that to you. You had to eat fast and keep the pace or you'd starve.
She leaned back in her chair and burped. This wasn't one of those cover your mouth with three fingers and let a little bubble out, I'm talking she blew us away. (You know what I'm talking about, don't you Hope?) Something moved in my heart as I realized that this was the girl of my dreams. Her brother shook his head and said something about how it was a wonder that she wasn't taken, and it really was.
The timing wasn't right back then, but I never forgot about her. We ran into each each other a few times after that at various parties, firehouse functions and things like that. Brian talked about her a lot so in a way I felt like I knew her but she really didn't know me.
A few years after the day she appeared on the fuzzy black and white screen came the Tuesday that broke all of our hearts. We wanted to take care of her family as much as we could but like I said they took care of each other and they didn't need us very much. When I saw her next at Brian's memorial service she was just a small, dark shadow of the girl she'd been. She was in a world of hurt and she wanted to be left alone so I respected that. I thought to myself that she wasn't going to recover. Her spirit was crushed and it was another tragedy in a long string of tragedies that sprung from that day.
That was the first and last time I've ever doubted your mom. She stayed away for a long time but then one snowy day two winters later she came back to the firehouse. She still wasn't the same girl, but the light was burning there behind her eyes and it's like she was coming to life again. She was changed but she was still the girl who captured my heart. I wasn't supposed to be there that day but I had switched shifts with another guy so I was and I really believe it was fate bringing her back to me. I called her a week later and asked her out we've hardly even stopped to catch our breath since then. When we do pause to reflect it seems surreal that the girl on the camera who got me smacked in the head for asking who she was, is mine now. I haven't done anything to deserve all the good that she's brought into my life, and yet here she is. Now here you are and soon your siblings will be here too and sometimes I'm just at a complete loss for words because I love you isn't enough and I'm just blown away.
I hope that on her birthday, we give mommy back just one tiny sliver of what she's given us. That's all.
Love,
Daddy
posted by: AmericanDad at 11:46 |
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