Daddy Stays in the Picture

“I’m drawing you, but Daddy’s not going to be in the picture.”

An innocent enough statement made by my four-year-old daughter, but it’s one, I suddenly realize, that cuts to the quick, articulating my deepest sense of childhood loss.

She’s lucky. Her statement is indeed harmless. Her daddy’s here. And he’s good.

He’s here to read stories to her and her brother on the couch, even as he starts to mumble and slur his words while falling asleep after a day at dental school.

He’s here to fix the trail-a-bike and attach it to his own bicycle for all our sunny weekend rides. He’s here to make her whole-wheat pancakes for breakfast. And he’s here to get her up to use the bathroom at midnight so she can wake up dry and warm in her morning bed.

Oh, I ache.

I ache for those years of knowing my dad was across town, but that I couldn’t see him every day. I ache for years of flinching when other kids would say “Mom and Dad” in the same sentence. And now I ache for these years ahead of me describing a grandpa my children will never know because he died ten years before their births.

How conflicting to lament my own loss and yet rejoice in my children’s gain.

My children are getting what I wanted—the luxury of saying “Daddy” with certainty and familiarity. The comfort of watching their father kiss their mother in the hallway. And the security to draw their family with or without their daddy because they know that he’s always in the picture.

By Anjie Reynolds