Circa 1989
Actually, she was a good woman, it’s just that we really never got along. The entire time we were together, I don’t think we actually gave each other the chance to care for each other; and love without trust was not really love at all.
We were young and couldn’t realize, or wouldn’t admit, that “we” were never meant to be. She and I lived life as one big party and caught up in the currents of fate, we were married, and the party was over. We spent more time arguing about each other and fighting than not.
Then, one day, she announced that she was pregnant, and what filled me with a sense of joy, left her with a sense of loathing. What should have been a unifying event, finally tore us apart. She wanted to abort the child, and while I felt that she had that right, it was my child too.
And so we fought and bickered until I finally gave in, only then it was too late and she had to have the child anyway. Rachel was a beautiful baby at seven pounds four ounces and completely healthy.
My wife and I separated even before Rachel was one, and after we parted, we never saw or spoke to one another again. There was no trial, no alimony, just a simple quiet separation where she had her freedom, and I had Rachel. Last I heard, she had gotten into trouble in California, but was now all right.
Although never having taken care of a an infant before, her early moring diaper changes, constant bottle feedings (and burpings) and her almost constant crying was more a joy than a litany and never wore thin. Raising her through that period was a time filled with love and contentment. She grew quickly and I helped her to crawl, walk and eat. Together we saw things that, though others may have looked at, only she and I ever really saw. And everything we did was done for the very first time in the world. She was my baby and I was her Dad. And all that time, I never missed my wife; through Rachel’s first tooth and the time she swallowed the marbles to the first day at school. I never missed her.
But tears flowed the day that Rachel, in her royal blue dress ran up to me in the school yard, jumped into my open arms, looked at me and asked:
“But Daddy, what about Mommy?”
Gently, I set her down, took her hand and said, “C’mon, lets go for a little walk. Mommy’s gone, but she was one of the most wonderful person in the world…”