[Bridger]

I never got to speak to you...

You can imagine your mother was devastated at the time, and I still thought it was because I had left her. I didn't know any better.

I still love her, you know, your mom. We were masters of the now, keepers of the past, but we never had a future. I left her because I needed that. I needed a future. I wanted to build a family. I loved her very much, but the child I wanted I loved more than I did her, and so I broke her heart.

And then, at 48 years old, despite birth control, the very last time we had sex she got pregnant. Your mother is so proud. She is so strong. And she is so selfless. She wanted me to have what she thought she had stolen from me. Because your mom is also an idiot. She thought she stole my youth. Took something that she had no right to, and that letting me go was the right thing to do.

Especially after I told her I met someone.

She never told me about you. All those months we kept in contact I saw her fall apart, and I thought it was because she couldn't get over me. And then it got scary. And painful. Being friends was turning out much harder than I thought it would.

You know what. The memory of when I found out about you is so clear. It is the clearest memory I have. Clearer than the present. But I have no idea anymore what led up to it. Why she decided to tell me.
I just remembered that she did.

There is something you have to know about me. Fatherhood was always something I was afraid of. Not because of the responsibility. That part is easy. It was because somewhere I was afraid I would be like my father. I am like him in so many ways, you know. The tightest bond we ever managed to form was when we carried your grandmothers sowing machine up 4 flights of stairs. That thing is a table of massive wood and ornate jutting steel. Every step was painful pinch of metal trying to find a way to dig itself into our bodies, and we cursed like sailors all the way upstairs. And I realized we were cursing the same curses, with the same intensity. God Damn it! GOD ****ING DAMN IT! ****ING PIECE OF ****!

I felt close to him and smiled. That was our playing catch moment.

Maybe that's a fear many fathers yet to be have. That they will see their child and then not love it like they think they should. That they won't be able to be the father that they wished they had, or the father they hope to be. I don't know. I only know I had that fear.

And then she told me about you.

And in that one instant, like a lightning strike, I fell in love with you, unconditionally. I didn't know your name. I didn't know anything about you other than that you existed. I didn't even know you were a girl then. I wasn't scared at all. I wasn't angry at your mother.

I was a father. Your existence, it was the happiest news of my life.

I wish so much that the story would end there, or take a different turn. You don't know how much I do. But then she told me you had died. That you weren't meant for this world.

And then she told me that she had you cremated, and scattered your ashes somewhere beautiful.

And she told me your name.

I don't have any words for what that did to me.

Maybe it's because I never held you that I cannot let you go.

I thought I had. I really did. I was doing so much better.

Now you come to me in dreams in which I never see you. And you tell me things I never hear, but know, and don't understand.

I don't sleep much anymore. Or well. I feel so weak. My soul feels weak.

There is this mountain of pain and it makes me feel so very small. How can anyone climb all the way up that and then get to the other side?

I want to ask you to please go away. And then I realize that I don't. I can't send you away.

I love you Isis, and if this pain is all that I have of you, I want to embrace it, and never ever let it go, even if it kills me.

[madisgram]

bridger, welcome to pc. i hope you will find some solace here. it is a very supportive community. i am sorry you never knew isis. but i think she would want you to live your life fully even though you were not able to know her. i understand your loss. it is like something you cannot resolve in your heart. i wish you well. know we are here for you.

[Leed]

Dear Bridger ~ What a beautiful tribute. My heart hurts for you. I'm so sorry for your loss. I personally have never lost a child, but my daughter lost a daughter - my granddaughter- and it was the hardest thing in the world to go thru. This tiny little being just was not meant to live. She is buried in "Babyland" in our local cemetery.

You have been hit hard by this traumatic event ~ may I suggest a grief counselor? I have talked to one and they are very helpful. Hospice has great grief counselors ~ and you don't have to have used their services to speak to their counselors. Give them a call and I'm sure they'll speak to you.

I wish you the very best. God bless you and please take care of YOU. Hugs, Lee