Ridiculous Opinions #292
In tribute to Harper!
As of this moment, my daughter is in the air, flying from Toronto to Hangzhou, China, where she is set to begin a new life in an old country. Because of that, she won’t be getting this email until she lands, but everything inside of this she knows to be true, so this is not information that she needs to know before she lands. Hopefully, it will be a nice surprise for her when she does.
The first thing I want to say is how proud I am of her. Again, she knows this, but I want the rest of the world to know it as well. We live in a world where people have a tendency to avoid actual, real conversations with each other. We just drift through life, worried about money, worried about our commutes, worried about how we will occupy our minds when we get home and what TV shows will be on and what posts have been made on the internet. We don’t actually have real conversations, where we sit down and say, “I’m proud of you!” or “I love you!” or “You mean absolutely everything to me!” We avoid those conversations because we are busy or because they make other people uncomfortable. But we really should.
Even I am avoiding the conversation as I write this, because Harper is in the other room, packing her bags and getting ready for her big adventure. But I also know that it gets on my daughters’ nerves when DAD GETS EMOTIONAL. And the last thing I want to do is cause even more stress by sitting her down and having that “dad” talk, where I look her in the eye and give her all of the life advice that I so desperately want to give her. I am choosing to simply write her in a public forum such as my email to tell her that I’m proud. Congratulations, Harps!
Harper was born 22 years ago in Vancouver. I was not nervous about her impending birth, because I was absolutely clueless. It started on a Sunday morning, when I woke up feeling a bit sick with a sore throat. Tracey was not due for another three weeks, so there was time. But the morning was almost comedic, where I woke up, rolled over in bed, and saw Tracey standing above me saying, “We have to get ready for this child!”
It was the only time that Tracey and I have ever really argued in such a way. I was nonchalant about the whole thing. “We’ve got time, Tracey,” I said to her. “We don’t have to rush.”
It made no difference. “We have to get ready for this child today!” she said. And so, with me grumbling the entire way, we trounced around Vancouver to prepare for a birth that was not due for another three weeks. And I remember, in my sickly, sore-throat haze, thinking, It sure would suck if the baby came today, considering how I feel.
Tracey’s water broke that night.
Tracey knew that the time was right. And sweet little Harper knew the time was right, too, though she waited a bit, because Tracey was in labor for forty-eight hours after that and Harper wasn’t born until Tuesday. She was born at home, in our bathtub. And thus began the adventure of a lifetime.
Everything about this girl has been wonderful. Absolutely everything. Ever since she was a tiny child, she has been curious about the world and open and kind. She is a wonderful friend, granddaughter, and daughter. She is, absolutely, a work of art, one that is still being created every day, and it has been an utter and complete joy to watch her blossom into the woman that she is. I can only imagine how much fun it’s going to be to watch her continue to do that.
I went through a grieving process when she first left home in 2020, and now I’m going through it again. We were lucky enough to spend the last year with her at home and now she’s off again on grand adventures. Thus, I air my melancholy to the world. Enjoy!
I leave you with this last photo, which is symbolic of everything that this girl is to me. This is from early 2003, when we used to take Harper for swim lessons in Vancouver. That’s me, swinging her back and forth in the water, and that look on her face is the very embodiment of how Harper approached the world at six months and how she approaches the world even now.
I don’t have to tell her how proud I am or how much I love her. She already knows. But I want the world to know it as well!
Love to you, Bean! We are SO VERY proud of you!