Tonight as I drove home from the hospital all I could think
about was how much I love my daughter. I have always looked at her as my little
girl until this week and now all I see is this beautiful young lady that possesses
the brains and determination to do anything she puts her mind to.
Maggie is my first child and will always be my first
everything. The first time I ever saw her I almost fainted. Since she was a
c-section baby my wife and I had a divider between my wife’s upper torso and myself sitting next to her, on the other side was the doctor, Kathy’s lower
torso and the surgery that was going on. When I heard the cry of the baby I
told Kathy I wanted to stand and look over at the baby. We did not find out
beforehand if it was a boy or a girl so I was very curious. I stood to see a
baby with a head covered in red which looked like blood. I was instantly panic
struck, what is wrong I thought? At which time the doctor said “we have a
beautiful, healthy little redheaded girl!” As the blood rushed back into my
head I realized that what I thought was blood was actually hair so I sat back down
before I fell down. This was my introduction to fatherhood and life with my
daughter.
Now when I say Maggie is a redhead, I mean she is not an
average redhead. When she was younger her hair was like fire and keeping a low
profile with a child that looked like Maggie was not an option. For Maggie it was just life and she has handled it with grace.
Her hair was like fire and so is her personality. She was
always on the go from day one. She inherited the night owl personality I had
developed over years of being a bartender so I spent the first few months of
her life playing with her when I would come home from work after a late evening
at the country club I was managing at the time. We would play and have our time
together as mama would get her sleep after a long day of tending to Maggie’s
needs.
As Maggie grew up she displayed the smarts and stubbornness she
had inherited from both of her parents and everything always had to be a certain
way, the way she liked it, the Maggie way. The funny thing was that my wife and
I noticed that she was usually correct in the way she wanted things so the two
of us would laugh and shake our heads and give her the benefit of the doubt
when she had a request for something.
This is where we come to this past week. Maggie wanted this
surgery, she prepared herself for it over the past several months and when it
was time to step up and do it she was ready and present. It is hard for us as
parents to watch her struggle in pain but she just keeps pushing each day and I
have a new kind of love for someone that I never thought I could love any more
than I already did. I guess its respect in some ways that adds the new dynamic
but it’s also a new kind of beauty I see in her. I have always been attracted
to strong personalities; if you know my wife you may understand that statement a
little more than others. I now see in Maggie what I have always seen in my wife
a strong, now taller, (1 inch) young lady that makes me smile when I look at
her.
Tonight as I left the hospital I could not say a word, I
could only smile at her. I am not the kind of guy that walks around with a
smile on my face but tonight I walked all the way to my car and drove all the
way home with a smile on my face.
Thank you God for this gift and for keeping her safe.
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