You probably don’t know how I watched you
when you were just a baby,
playing curiously with a piece of wallpaper
that had pulled away from the bottom of the wall,
and how after you went to bed,
I got down on the floor and became mesmerized myself
with the torn wallpaper.
You probably don’t know how panicked I felt
when you were a little girl and you yelled
through the bathroom door while I was in the shower,
asking me if we had any white paint,
and I yelled back that it was in the basement,
and you yelled, “Great! We want change our street signs from
Amiens Crescent to Aliens Crescent”,
and how I rushed through my shower, got dressed,
and ran up and down Amiens Crescent looking for you
and checking all the street signs to make sure they hadn’t been changed,
and then pretending to be a normal composed dad again
when I saw you hanging out with your friends on your bicycles,
with no white paint in sight.
You probably don’t know how excited I was
when you traveled for the first time alone to the
Dominican Republic as a young volunteer,
but also how terribly frightened I was too,
and then how relieved I was when you came home safely.
You probably don’t know how scared I was
when I held your tiny, wrinkly infant body
for the first time,
frightened by my responsibility
to care for the vulnerable human in my arms,
and how I thought you were the most precious miracle
I had ever witnessed in a hundred lifetimes.
And you probably don’t know that,
even though you are now a grown woman,
I still think you are the most precious miracle
I have ever witnessed.