How Do I Raise Her

How do you raise a daughter to believe in love without offering her  proof that heartbreak is survivable?

Every single time I imagine myself becoming a father,

I don’t see birthdays first. I don't really see myself going for a dad daughter date on Sunday evening. 

I don't see myself being called to school on Monday morning because my daughter has punched someone on the jaw; I told her you pay disrespect with disrespect. 

I don't see all that...

I see February. Valentine's day 

She will wake up very early that day. 

She will dress carefully after breakfast. 

I'll ask why she looks this good and she'll remind me of the date with this boy Mark.  It's today. 

She will wait for a message that takes too long to arrive.

She will check her phone the way people check wounds; hoping they’ve stopped bleeding.

When it doesn’t come, I'll ask why he's not here yet. It's past two hours. 

She will still defend him. Maybe he’s busy. Love is patient.

She will say anything except the truth: that being forgotten hurts more

than being left.

She will walk back to her room with roses in her imagination and nothing in her hands. And I will break silently.

Because I know that walk. I have walked it. Chest heavy. Pride bleeding internally.

I will want to hunt the boy down and teach him the cost of loving carelessly.

But fathers are not allowed to be wolves. We are only allowed to be walls.

So I will hold her while she cries into my shirt, and every sob will feel like interest

on the love I owe her.

I will tell her the truth this time: that romance is dangerous.

That some people love you best right before they ruin you.

That attention is not affection, and grand gestures do not equal loyalty.

But I will also tell her this, and it will hurt me most of all:

“Love anyway.

Just don’t die in the process.”

Valentine’s Day will come again.

She will heal.

She will love someone new.

She will laugh differently.

And I will stand at the doorway, older, shaking, praying she is not loving someone who learns her value only after she leaves.

Because the most brutal thing about love is not that it ends, it’s that it teaches us using the people we care about most.

© amimoh