June 5 2019 - I miscarriaged my baby. My little black bird left the world before he even had a chance to join it. I will always wonder who you would become. I’m sorry baby. I love you.
June 7 2020 - My Daddy took his last breath. I was at work. I need him still. I miss him so much. It hurts to not have him be only five minutes away. I was five minutes away when he died. I should’ve been with him. I’m sorry Daddy. I love you.
I hope you guys are together. I know you’ll take care of my little bird, daddy. I just wish it didn’t have to be so soon. I wish I could see you both. I love you both. So much. I love you.
There was a garden. Maybe she’d always been there, or maybe she had just appeared out of thin air, but here she was. Flowers of every color, trees of all shapes and sizes, and warmth, so much warmth. Everywhere she looked, she was surrounded by life.
There were people, as well. All around her, people shuffled slowly along the winding paths, a natural ease between them, deep in conversation. Speaking their private thoughts softly to each other, their smiles modest but sincere, so lost in each other that she slipped between them like a summer breeze.
And then, suddenly, there he was. Tall and broad as she remembered from her childhood, when she’d throw her tiny arms around his waist and only make it halfway around. She felt the relief wash over her as she staggered towards him now.
“Daddy?”
There was a sadness in his smile, but he didn’t let it linger. He wrapped her in his arms and held her close as she laughed into his shoulder.
“But I thought--”
“Nope,” he said, “I’m right here.”
She beamed up at him, drinking in every detail of his face, it had been so long. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, softly. “I have so much to tell you.”
Together they ambled along the meandering paths. They reminisced about the old days and all of their traditions. She told him what was going on in the world and all the books and movies she wished she could share with him. She told him about her career and her travels, about the breakup, about her life. She told him of her doubts, her fears, of all the ways she felt like she’d let him down.
“Come on,” he said, stopping to take a seat on the stone wall, “you could never let me down. You’re my star.”
She felt the tears come before she could stop them and sank down next to him. “I miss you so much,” she sobbed.
“I know. I miss you too. But you don’t belong here.”
She looked up then, at the garden with its too-bright flowers and the light that shined just a little too gold. She could feel the edges of her vision fogging. Everyone was staring at her. Everyone was gone.
“Dad,” she said uneasily, “where are we?”
He sighed and stood up. “It’s time to go.”
“But--” She looked up at him, startled and stammering. “But I only just got here!”
“I told you, sweetie, you can’t stay here.”
“No!” she shrieked, like a child. “I can’t leave you! Please don’t make me leave you.”
He drew her in close, and suddenly she was a little girl again, maybe three, maybe four, rising before dawn to pull herself up to her windowsill where she’d tap on the glass as he crossed to the garage below her and on to his second job delivering donuts in the wee hours of the morning; he’d look up and see her waving excitedly, and he’d wave back, and she couldn’t know then what it meant to him to see his little girl so bursting with pure, innocent love for him that she somehow woke up in the dark every morning for an extra glimpse of her daddy as he walked out the door.
He was walking away from her now. She didn’t scream, she didn’t cry, she didn’t run; she simply raised a hand and waved like a child as she watched him go, taking the sunlight and the garden and so much of her with him, and she woke up.
