This post was originally published on January 25, 2009.
This weekend Trishna and I spent some 'girl time' at a local
children's museum. Every room had a different theme: construction,
music, numbers, nature. Each one contained plenty of scope for the
imagination.
But our favorite by far was an exact replica of the room from the classic book Goodnight Moon.
You know how, as a kid, you were convinced that the settings in books
and movies really existed? And if you could just get there, you'd
become part of the action?
(I remember feeling this way about the yellow brick road in Wizard of Oz.) Well, the Goodnight Moon room made that fantasy a reality for my little girl.
Watching
Trishna explore, I couldn't help but reflect on the years she didn't
get to do the normal stuff that goes along with childhood.
A little girl shouldn't spend the first four years of her life in an orphanage.
And after four years how can you, my girl, learn what it means to have a Mommy and Daddy?
Of
course it is hard to trust, when you've always had to protect and guard
your fragile heart alone.
You've built walls for self-preservation you
no longer need. But once they've been constructed, it's tough even for
love to tear them down.
My little girl, I wish I could have been
with you those four years.
To pick you up as a baby when you cried. To
watch you take your first steps. To hear you speak your first words.
My little girl, I will never, ever leave you. You will never be abandoned again. You are loved.
And I can't wait until the day you finally start believing that.
That day is coming, my love.
And I'll still be here when it arrives.
