My Daughters

Don't you sometimes wonder why you are naturally drawn to some people and not to others. I have learned the hard way that I cannot always trust my first instinct on people. Most times, if I find I do not care for someone right away, I find that first impression is accurate, but I have way too many long term friends I thought I didn't like at first and yet they came to be lifelong dear friends, so I cannot tell you I am the best at assessing who will be my friend for life and those I do not care to spend 5 minutes with ever.

But I have seemed to be immediately drawn to a couple young women that I have over the years just adopted as my daughters. I apparently just have a natural need to be a mother and not getting that biological opportunity, I was fortunate enough to find that need met with some wonderful women that for whatever reason also must have a need in the opposite direction.

They are both alike and yet different from me and each other. Both are responsible, loving, sweet women, now both with babies of their own. Kyle's mother seemed naturally to understand that when she was pregnant I really needed to hear and understand exactly what she was going through. Typically we don't discuss all those "women" issues that many women feel they need to tell every stranger on the street, instead, we were private with "female" issues. But she instinctually knew that I needed to hear all the things that came along with pregnancy that I had missed out on. She understood that I did not have any jealousy, but rather an unfulfilled curiousity of actually feeling a baby move and grow inside of you. We never spoke about what subjects were off limits and what were okay, it was just a natural outcome of knowing each other so well. When she had Kyle, I got to experience, through her descriptions the joy of having a baby.

She and her husband had been married for quite a few years before she got pregnant and she had told me how many times people asked them when they were going to have a baby. I would never ask because I knew how painful hearing that question was when I was in my 20's. Several months after our grandson was born I felt I needed to finally have a serious discussion with her.

Being childless, I wanted to make sure that she wasn't deciding to not have a child of her own and then seriously regretting that decision when it was too late to reverse.

So I composed a carefully worded, motherlike advise email. The funny thing was that she finally confessed they had been "trying" for a few months. Not too many months later she told me she was pregnant.

My second "daughter" moved here from California to be closer to her then-boyfriend/later turned husband. Again, there was an immediate bond. Her family was far away and she appreciated having a motherly type looking out for her. We formed a natural bond that could have just been a normal "mentor" type relationship, but was somehow so much more. While Kyle's mom is a smart, very self-confident woman that can do everything and more. My California daughter is a smart and sometimes self-doubting woman that I can happily and honestly boost her ego. She's amazing, she just sometimes needs me to remind her of that.

A couple years ago, my California daughter had to move to Texas with her husband's job. I hated seeing her leave and she didn't want to go, but there wasn't alot of choice. Last year she was lucky enough to become pregnant with twins. She was nervous, of course. When she was a few months along she called me and told me she needed to have me pat her on her head. She's the worrier type and when we worked together, she would come stoop by my desk and I would pat her head and tell her everything would be alright.

During her call she was upset because they weren't saving enough. She was frantic that they hadn't met their savings budget for the month. She and her husband are very responsible, so I knew where this was heading.

I started off easy on her. I first asked if they were still contributing to their 401k's. Yes. Then I asked her, "So you don't have enough money to make your car payment??" No, they had enough money for the car. I faked a little more hysteria, "So you can't make your house payment?" No, of course they could make their house payment. Then I went on full attack, "Then you must mean you don't have enough money for groceries. You mean, you're pregnant and you can't feed those babies growing inside you????" By then she's laughing at me and herself. Of course she could buy groceries. I then said, "Ok, I don't understand, you wanna tell me what the problem is EXACTLY?"

A few weeks later she ended up having to stay in the hospital for weeks on end to keep "incubating" the girls until they were ready and healthy. During her stay, her husband lost his job. A few weeks after the girls were born, she lost her job. I was proud of her. I'm sure she panicked a little (who wouldn't?), she managed to maintain her sanity, it gave them both time to take care of two babies and she found a job a few weeks ago. She also said that now better understands that her previous concern of not meeting her self-imposed savings budget really wasn't much of an emergency after all.

When she first told me she was in the hospital, I called her husband and flew out to surprise her for a weekend visit. It was nice to spend time with her. I'll have to figure out when Mamaw Rita can come out to visit the two new grandbabies.

I'm proud of these two women. I love the relationships we have developed and know that they will last a lifetime.