Mental Health
I Have a Daddy,
Right? WRITTEN BY ALEXIS BRILL
“I have a daddy, right? My daddy is Andrew, right? My daughter casually asked me recently over dinner. I stopped in my tracks, kneeled to her level, looked her straight in the eyes and reassured her that, yes, she does have a daddy. Daddy’s name is Andrew. He wanted so much to be here with us, but his body stopped working and he died. I reassured her about how much he loves her, and that he will always love her. This marked the first time our daughter has ever asked about her father directly. It was the week of her third birthday. Her dad, (my husband) Andrew, died from colon cancer when our daughter was 6 months old, just shy of his 40th birthday. I talk about her daddy a lot in a casual way, “Your daddy loved that song,” “You made a face that looked just like daddy,” and “Your daddy loved salmon, too.” But this question and the casual way in which she asked me caught me by surprise. For our daughter, daddy is an ethereal mystery. He is someone she knows about but recognizes is not here physically. He is in pictures sprinkled throughout our house, and he is in our conversations. He is in paintings she creates, and he is in videos on my phone, which she adores watching. He is in my memories, which I recount to her. She knows he is not here, and I wonder what she must be thinking, as she is too young to understand the concept of death. She sees daddies pick up their kids at school; she hears stories of her peers’ daddies and, when we’re out with friends and their kids, her friends’ daddies are often there.
22
may 2022
