Letter to Viv, Year Three

Dec 12, 2009 11:59

Dear Viola,



This is your mother speaking.

If you're reading this, then you are much older than you are now, and I feel like I don't have to censor myself. Anyway. So here's the thing-I don't know what you'll be like when you get older any more than I know what I'll be like. I don't know what the future holds, and I'm crap at guessing the future, so I'm just gonna throw out some stuff I've been thinking about us in this, the occasion of your birthday.

We are going to have a tough road ahead of us. I'm a single mommy who has many issues, none of which have to do with you, by the way. And you, well, you are a headstrong child. That can be very very good in some ways, don't get me wrong. And you are very clever and loving, so that's definitely a plus, but you are very contrary and stubborn, traits which I wholeheartedly confess you got in spades from both your father and me.

We are going to have it rough because it's just us. I know that we have Pop-pop and Joan-ma and Liang Liang and Ye Ye, and a bunch of mommy's friends, but in the end, it's you and me, kiddo, and I think we can be there for each other.

But it boils down to this: we miss your daddy. He was supposed to be here, and there are a lot of complicated explanations as to why he is not. When you are much much older I will get you drunk and explain some of them to you, but for now that is not an option. Or maybe it is. Maybe I've already done it. But now, when you are three and I am writing this to your future self, I'll explain what I think your future, grown up self needs to know about this, just in case I don't get to buy you that six pack of Smirnoff Ice and then hold your hair while you puke.

Daddy was a very stubborn man, and he liked things to be a certain way, too. And he had a vision of the future, and himself in it. Unfortunately, life isn't always what you think it will be, and in a lot of ways your Daddy had issues with that. Daddy always thought he would be a spy or a rock star or a ninja or something, and he was none of those. That was depressing.

Additionally, your Daddy had many interests and wants and simply couldn't do them all. He wanted to be a musician and a writer and a gamer and a engineer and a member of the Foreign Legion (I'll explain that one later), and there simply isn't enough time to do all that. In order to be good at one, he had to give up the others, and that made him sad. There were other things, like pressure from the outside world to be a different person, to work for things that would make him a success, and he wanted success, he really did, but he didn't like that he had to give up all the activities he did in order to get it.

Like I said, it's complicated. Suffice to say, by the time your Daddy died, all of this stuff had combined to make him depressed, and in the end, I think his depression wasn't even about that anymore. That's what happens, sometimes. The things that combine to make you sick grow and change in your head until you are just sick, and it's not even related to the things that made you sick in the first place. When Daddy died, there was a lot of him that wasn't even himself anymore, not anyone that I would have wanted you to know.

So let me tell you what I think Daddy, the real Daddy, would have thought of you.

I think you would have driven him crazy. Your Daddy didn't know anything about kids, but I think by now he'd be pretty masterful. And while he would still be making jokes about you pooping in your pants (and some of them would be very hard to explain Rod Stewart jokes), he would have thought you were awesome. He would be mad at me for dressing you in so much pink, and he would have already tried to teach you how to turn all the Transformers into cars or robots or something.

I think he would think your thing for robots and Spiderman was funny, and he would be doing his Bruce Lee impression for you and explaining about how you are Asian, so you have to rice out your big wheel. I am sure that he would have been the one who would have encouraged the piano or the guitar, and he's the one who would have said, 'Let's get a dog!' or 'MIDNIGHT ICE CREAM EXPRESS.' I will try to uphold some of the thing that he would have done just because he would have done them, and so sometimes that is why I go a little bonkers.

I know your Daddy would have adored you. In fact, I think I would have ended up being the bad guy a lot more than I am now, so keep that in perspective the next time you are mad at me.

I don't know how you are going to miss Daddy, but I know that you will, and I wish I could stop that, but I know that I cannot be him, and there will be a million little ways that you will miss him, and some of it will be without you ever knowing it. I wish I could spare you that pain, but I cannot. But I want you to know that I miss him too, and I will try to fill his (freakishly large!) shoes to the best of my ability.

All of this said, let's talk about me. I am sad about your Daddy. I have been since before you were born, and I am sure that I still am whenever the time is that you are reading this. I don't know if you have ever been in love before, but it is a very scary thing, and I encourage you to do it. But the downside to being in love, silly, horribly butt crazy in love, kiddo, is that if something happens to one of you, the other one is still in love, but the other person isn't there anymore. I hope to god that this never happens to you.

So yeah, it isn't anyone's fault, except Daddy's, and even then he was sick, so it wasn't his fault, really, in some ways. And it will never ever be your fault, so I don't want to ever hear you think or say that.

But because I am sad, even though I am working to not be sad, I'm not the best person in the world. I can be mean, or selfish, just like you. I can be tired or cry, just like you can and do sometimes. And I sometimes need time by myself, just like you do (and if you are or have already been a teenager, you know about alone time).

None of this has anything to do with the fierce, overwhelming love that I feel for you. It's partly because you are my blood and because I carried you and fed/clothed/spanked you and changed your diapers and all that, and it's not even because you are your Daddy's girl, though that makes you even more precious, despite that preciousness really cannot be measured. You are not a diamond to be broken down into carats, or anything that I could quantify anyway.

I love you because you are you. I love you because you are mine, and I am yours. I helped to make you, and I was there (obviously) when you were born, and you and I looked into each other's exhausted eyes and we both knew (though you didn't know it yet) that we were one of each other's great loves for all time. Not like being in love-love, but familial love, a band that doesn't break because we cannot ever break up. We can't divorce. We are all we got in some ways, and that can be a solace.

I love you and all your ways. I love you beyond race and gender and sexual orientation, beyond religion or political affiliation. I love you beyond occupation and education, and you best remember that, because that will be important later.

I love you beyond everything you do to your body. And even though I may not like them, I love you beyond the choices you make in boy or girlfriends. I love you beyond extra curricular activities, musical tastes and the way you dress. Because all of that is just window dressing, really, frills and curtains that showcase your soul, your you, and that is brilliant, Viv, it's just brilliant.

So yeah, remember that. Remember me. Remember, when we are screaming at each other, or when we are sitting at the beach, or when we are shopping for prom dresses/tuxes and the one you want is too expensive. Remember when you walk down the aisle to the man or woman of your dreams. Remember when you hold your own kid in your arms, be it from your womb or someone else's and you look into their eyes and see them peering out, that that is how I love you-all encompassing, encircling, infinite, even when the time comes that I am no longer there. I am, I am always. I am in love with you, baobei, always.

Love,

Mom

personal wiggety-wack, birthdays, viola, tianyu

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