My sweet daughter lives about 5 hours away in a suburb north of Chicago. She met her husband and they married in 2019 and are expecting their first child in less than 2 weeks. She and I talked on the phone tonight and she told me she realized why she had so much anxiety about having her baby. Of course, she had the usual feelings of nervousness about the delivery and caring for a newborn, but she felt like her anxiety was greater than normal. She said she realized that by leaving her pregnant self behind and becoming a mother, she was moving on. She doesn’t want to move on, she feels frozen in time with the death of her father. Her dad celebrated her pregnancy with her, but he would not be here to celebrate her motherhood. Or to meet his new granddaughter. It breaks my heart that our daughter won’t be able to hear her dad say how proud he is of her, what a great job she’s doing, how precious her daughter is. How bittersweet that initial moment of motherhood will be for my daughter, when she looks into the face of her baby and her world takes a giant rotation around and around, moving on without her dad. Moving on.
Joanna and I cried together and shared some memories and stories about her wedding and her father. She and her husband had moved their wedding date up about 6 months when Billy was diagnosed. When Billy walked Joanna down the aisle, there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. We didn’t know then we would have him for almost 5 more years. But still not enough time. Not long enough that he could meet her child.
So much pain and yet so many blessings. I’m hoping Billy can see us from paradise. I’m hoping he will get to witness our only daughter become a mother.
A Little Bit of Everything, With Love 