I Have a Daughter

You may not know this but I have a daughter.  Her name is Yvette.   She is a piece of my story that holds pain and shame, love and sadness but more importantly a place of hope.  

Yesterday someone said that how I speak about my daughter has changed over the years.   She said that  years ago when my son Tristan would talk about his sister that she could see me tense up;  that grit your teeth kind of thing was what I think she was describing.  It was true and sometimes still is when the subject of Yvette comes up, when people ask "how many children do you have" which leads to other questions like:  "where does your daughter live" or "what does she do".    I can only give one line answers because I really don't know what she does or where she really lives other than Toronto (if that is still true).   I can tell them that she doesn't have children because that was a decision she made long ago.   I respect that decision and would never say why because that would betray her confidentiality.   I can say she works in an office because that was what she was doing the last time we communicated or tried to communicate.

For a long time I never spoke about my daughter with people, not revealing I had two children unless I felt total trust in the person I was sharing this detail with.   I know that I didn't talk about her out of shame: shame that I would be judged because I didn't have a relationship with her;  what kind of mother was I that her own daughter wouldn't speak with her.  That belief still crops up at times, the fear of judgement.   I don't or haven't told the whole story to many people about what happened partly because I don't want people to judge either of us and partly because it seems so crazy that for 12 years we have not had a relationship because of a decision I made, because of a promise she couldn't keep.

I love her and always will.  I hold a place in my heart that is just for her.   I hold out hope that one day we will sit together and share a meal and catch up.   I sometimes picture myself taking her to town and introducing her to everyone  I know; of showing her around this island, of inviting people to come for a celebration dinner to meet her.   In the meantime I have my memories.

When she was little, around 6 or 7 she fell in love with long dresses.  She wore dresses most of the time;  you would very seldom find her in pants.  The long dresses were for the weekend, dress up time. Sometimes I would have to put her hair in rags so she had extra curls in her long hair.    I remember mornings brushing her hair and hearing the ouches because of tangles and threatening to cut her hair because I was tired of the fight to get it brushed.  One day she replied to that threat with:   "You can't cut my hair because no one will know me, they know me as Yvette with the long hair".  It was beautiful and sad to hear those words, to hear her identity related to her hair not to who she was.

One of her best friends at this time was Shelley.  At least every other weekend she would spend the night at our place.   The two of them, after spending the day together at school and after school, would talk and giggle long into the night.  I use to call them jabber jaw and motor mouth.  They were inseparable.

I remember the time she was devastated when she realized she had left her Mrs. Beasley doll at school.  It was gone and she was inconsolable.   When she went to school on Monday there was Mrs. Beasley with some repairs done by the janitors wife.  He had found the doll, taken it home and had his wife sew up the tear from what they thought was probably a dog.  Yvette was so happy to have her Mrs. Beasley back.

In 1989 she and I did a road trip across Canada.  I was meeting John in Vancouver to start our journey to the Queen Charlotte Islands where we were going to kayak South Moresby.  Yvette would fly back to Toronto.  Everywhere Yvette and I stopped on our journey people would ask about the kayaks:  where were we going to paddle, for how long, how much could we carry in them, what about food and water.   At one point she blurted out "if one more person asks about those kayaks I'm going to scream".   We took pictures of ourselves at every provincial greeting.  We hiked and swam; sometimes we camped and on a couple of occasions we stayed at a b&b.  One night we stayed in a hotel with an indoor swimming pool.  It felt so luxurious.   It was an incredible journey together, to see this country, to spend time just the two of us.  On our first night in Vancouver we went out to dinner.  Yvette had ordered ginger ale but to my surprise was given a rye and ginger ale.  I didn't discover this until the bill came.  The waiter thought she had ordered the drink and had assumed she was old enough.  She felt great about getting away with this mistake while the waiter was so apologetic.

Yvette was with me when Tristan was born.  She was seventeen at the time.   She was there throughout the whole day and into the evening.  She would rub my back, give me ice chips and tell me I was doing good.  She would walk with me and ask if I needed anything.  She saw his head as he made his way down the birth canal.  She was there to hold him just after he entered this world.   She loved him and he loved her so much.  She was his big sister and still is but he misses her.  I know there is a hurt place in his heart, a place where there is that void.   It hurts me that I can't fix that for him.  

My dad loved Yvette.  He would chase her around the house and she would giggle and run as fast as her little legs could carry her.   My dad use to have this saying "oh bite my bum".  One time she did.  We were at the cottage and she heard him say this.  While he was standing in the kitchen she snuck up behind him and bit his bum.   We were all in hysterics.  This relationship continued long into her teen years; him teasing her, tickling her, her sneaking extra candies from the candy dish and him knowing what she was doing; it was their game.

I remember some of her boyfriends, taking her shopping for clothes, driving her to town with her friends and picking them up later in the night.  I remember fights we had, the kind that happens between a parent and child.   I remember her asking to go to her tower for her birthday dinner; the tower she spoke about was the CN tower.  She wanted to eat in the revolving restaurant and so she did.   I remember dancing and laughing together, skating on the pond at our house, watching her grow.   I remember her learning to drive and leaving the driveway the first time in my car, praying she would be fine, waiting for the sound of the car coming back in the driveway later that night and finally being able to sleep.

I remember sad times too, those times that I couldn't change what was happening in our lives without a cost to one or both of us, decisions that had to be made.   I remember hating her father for how he treated her after she moved back with him.   I remember the fight that caused this separation between us and hold that pain in my heart everyday.  

I have seen her once in these last 12 years.   I have tried to rebuild this relationship.   I stay open to the possibility that one day she will let go and let me into her life.   Until that happens I will keep her in my heart and perhaps let go of not telling you I have a daughter.

I recently put this picture on the fridge as a reminder.

Thank you Charlene for helping me to open this door. 

What about you; is there a secret that you hold out of shame, a choice you made that has impacted your life in ways you never thought possible, things you don't tell those you love because of the fear of judgement?   How would it feel to share those things, the secrets, the emotions that you hold somewhere in your body?