Angelic Daughter has turned 30. Many young women think of 30 as a major milestone, a daunting relationship deadline, or an opportunity to reinvent themselves as more mature and responsible adults.
Angelic Daughter doesn’t live her life based on timelines and milestones. She doesn’t worry about what should have been accomplished by when. The passage of time for her is sometimes bewildering, intermittently sad, or just irrelevant.
Yet she knows she’s not a little girl anymore. She knows Dad’s been gone for eight and a half years. But she’s still struggling with “he can’t come back,” and she’s still having a hard time accepting that her neurotypical peers have moved on to careers, marriages, and often, relocation to other states.
I’m the one who imposes timelines. I decided that this year’s excursion downtown, to a place filled with expensive dolls designed to delight much younger girls, would be our last. We’ve been going there annually during the holidays, and sometimes for birthdays, since Angelic Daughter was about 4 or 5. I decided this year would be the final such visit, and next year, we’d do something “more grown up.”
When someone she knows moves from one phase of life to another, Angelic Daughter refers to it as “graduating.” When I retired, I “graduated” from work. When I explain that it’s unrealistic to expect that neurotypical friends would still be available to meet up with her, she says she has “graduated” from them. “I have to let her go,” she says.
As I was driving around buying a birthday card and candles, I got choked up. That’s understandable, I suppose, when your only child is on the precipice of what most people think of as a milestone birthday. But it was kind of a milestone for me, too.
As the tears and little sobs started I said to myself, “you did it, Annie–you got her this far–we made through the pandemic and through eight and a half years of holidays, all without Mike.”
He died when she was 21. So it’s been just the two of us who made it through her twenties.
The first thing I said to Mike, when he told me the doctor called and said it was Stage 4 cancer, was “I’m scared.” He looked shocked. He said, “whoa, I wasn’t expecting that!“
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know, but not that!“
Did he think I’d say something like, “We’ll fight this thing together. We can beat it if we try!”
I did try. But Mike wouldn’t accept my efforts to help him fight. He wouldn’t read the books on alternative medicine, diet, or meditation. He didn’t want a second opinion. He just dutifully took his chemo, endured his infusions, and when there was nothing else to do, elected hospice and faced his end with bravery and grace.
He also said, “It’s okay. I feel like I’m done here. I wouldn’t know what to do with her as an adult anyway.”
The adulting thing would be on me. That’s what scared me.
In those moments alone in the car, I had the usual parental flashbacks. I thought about how I sat in the glider in the nursery in our city townhome, the night the contractions started. They were weak and far apart, but I had seen the signs I was taught to expect, so I knew that these weren’t just “false” Braxton-Hicks contractions. This was the real deal. Our baby was coming.
I remembered how I sipped a juice box and looked at the crib, ready to receive whatever tiny new person we’d bring home from the hospital. I glanced up through the skylight, imagining how the baby would look up, too, and see stars on a clear night, even through the intense light pollution of the city. I remembered how I knew that our lives were about to change in a profound and irreversible way, and there would be no going back.
Angelic Daughter was not what we expected. I don’t really know what we did expect, but what we got was lovelier, more miraculously beautiful, and more challenging than anything we could ever have thought to expect.
Now, here we are 30 years later, with no going back. That tiny human is now a full grown adult, with unexpected differences that make the world more beautiful and more difficult for both of us than it is for most typical families. The only thing we can do is go forward, just the two of us, figuring out one day at a time what “adulting” is in Angelic Daughter’s different world.
On the day before her birthday, as we were driving back from one of the classes for adults with disabilities she’s taking at our local community college, Angelic Daughter was again talking about how Dad can’t come back. I was again reminding her that while he can’t come back the way he was before, he sends his love through his little messages, to let us know he’s still with us.
That’s when Angelic Daughter changed the radio station, and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” was on.
Thanks for checking in, Mike. I know you’re as proud of her as I am. Stick with us while we figure out this next decade together.
Until then, I remain,
your sentimental, still scared but doing the best I can,
Ridiculouswoman
We all do the best we can. You certainly have done an amazing job raising your daughter. Be proud!
Thanks! I appreciate the vote of confidence!
I really don’t know what to say. Such a moving piece that reflects what we do when life doesn’t go as planned or as expected. You are preparing your daughter for her future, just like a parent should. She may not understand it all but who really does? And thank goodness you are the type of parent who is doing her best for her child!
Congratulations to you both. It is a wonderful milestone that the two of you have passed and yes, it is tearful and blessed at the same time.
Especially in these uncertain times of little compassion and support for the neurodivergent, socio-divergent, economically divergent, etc. it is challenging for thousands, millions of our fellow citizens. We who do not fit into some phantom perfect picture all share an extra burden of concern right now. I salute you having come this far and heart to heart, through the Invisibles, my daughter and I stand and breathe with you both and all the others as we hope for the best to weather these challenging times.
Thanks, Judy. I can feel the love!