May 31st

In this week's paper, if the year was still 1997, I could see the picture of my eldest daughter and I, holding hands in the park. She was so little then, so scared to talk to anyone and she needed my hand to hold. The photographer saw that, put a black and white image on the second page of the Record. I've kept that image of her and me in that wooden box with all of her ribbons, but now it's gone. Fitting, because now she's gone. We used to read at night, back when she needed to hold my hand. She'd get dropped off at two o'clock, back at our house next to the river by my mother, every Wednesday after they had gotten french fries from McDonald's. Common sense says that Mom shouldn't have given a little four year old girl a medium fry to eat all by herself, but she was such a good little girl.
So she'd get dropped off at two without the remants of salt on her face but with the smile, and we'd read together until it was time for me to get changed to go to work. We had started out with the simple stuff, would read her Goodnight, Moon when it was time to go to bed at night, and read her the books she picked out by herself in the library. Those kids were so cute, walking down the street all holding onto the scarf-rope. Her fingers were clenched tight, she's always taken rules seriously,didn't want to get lost on that block they walked. I wonder if she remembers that, if she makes the connection that she was one of those children when she eats her raw fish at that sushi place she likes and sees them all trot by.
I wonder if she notices me notice, if she's forgotten all I've done for her. She's growing, well, she thinks she's grown, and she has forgotten I was there in the first place. That I was the one prepping her for her kindergarten interview when she was worried, and I was the one who was confident that she would do well; I was the one to tell her mother not to worry because she was so smart that she'd be too afraid to not be friendly, too.

Now she reads her books, and she counters me when I bring up mine. She judges me at dinner when I keep quiet, the voices of the three girls humming and brimming with drama and laughter. I'm proud when I find time to finish one of my books, gives us something to talk about. My daughter, though she doesn't see me do it enough. I hear her mother whisper to her that she thinks I'm jealous of her. Jealous of my own daughter? Ridiculous. How could I be?

I always am.

I know I made her, I know she's a direct product of me and all of my efforts. I taught her to swim, I taught her to read, I taught her to write, I taught her to run, I taught her to excel. I always made certain that she was doing the best. And academics are the most important. In Lenape when she was learning about the Irish, she wrote that story that made Mom cry. A nine year old! She wrote about death and despair and potatos. When she was ten, we made that tsunami for her, and the big crocodile, and she was so proud of us for making that Croc come in third. I think that was the last time she was proud of me. Can't she see? That I've always been more proud of her. She's won awards since then, she's gone places I could have never gone, she's read books I could have never read. I've been proud of her this whole time. Even when she was weak, and she came out crying talking to Pa, even after I prepped her, I'm still proud of her, because she got through it, and wrote the Veteran's paper, and made her grades a little higher, a little smarter than she already was.

My daughter is seventeen, and scares me. She treats me with an insincere "Hello" when she gets home, something she's forgotten I hate. We're having conversations about colleges, all those Universities that bombard our mailbox with glossy pictures of kids in on grassy hills. Yesterday, she asked me "Do you think I would fit in in Washington?" She would fit in wherever she pleased, as long as she wears normal clothes: Levi's, and sweatshirts, and sneakers. Her worries about two years from now confuse me, how could a kid like that not get in? How could she scrutinize herself so much for one place, one town, one college? I've prepped her for everything, taught her the most important concepts, but she's been pushing away, farther from her father, leaving the uncredited teacher she's always had ever since that time when I let her down, when I let her fail, and quit. The yellow pad, the one with all of her goals and accomplishments is still there, in that box with the ribbons, but the pad is all she sees. It's all she's allowed herself to see. The one thing I want to write on there are words of encouragement, but she doesn't listen. She's never listened to the words of encouragement I've been embarrassed to say. She wants to make me proud, and wants to see the smile I've always had for her, since that first Wednesday when the french fry monster could read to me.

Her worries about colleges are her worries when she was getting ready for that interview for kindergarden. her classmates are the same, but the people are different, the schools are different, the libarary that she used to walk to is different, and the desk she's behind is different.

The newspaper is different now, too. There's no more chance of seeing that black and white photograph again now that I've lost it from that wooden box. In the era of technology and matters of importance, I doubt that her feet have been scanned into the computer, or that wooden beam she stood on next to me. It's this week's paper, but the year is not 1997, and my eldest daughter does not have those days at the park, she does not have those bangs that invade her eyes, and she doesn't have me to hold her hand.
She has what I've given her, what I've prepped her for, what we've prepared. And she'll be okay. Hell, she's getting her own french fries now, and reading her own books.