by Sandra Lowen

Created on: July 19, 2010

MY DAUGHTER-A Reflection

I dressed you a million times as a child. I saw your face on dollies my guardian took from me when the Christmas tree came down and placed on shelves, high up on shelves that girls couldn’t reach, then given away to other girls when I went to live elsewhere. I longed to touch you, to hold you, to place maternal kisses on your Cupid’s bow mouth. I bought your layette over and over again, in greens and yellows and pristine whites, pink being a color I ruled out early, as too mundane, too ordinary for the likes of you.

You danced before me in the flowers, throwing your fragrance at me like snowflakes. I heard you laughing wildly in thunderstorms, in hurricanes. I began sentences with my friends: “When I have my daughter, I’m going to—“

Go with you to the mall; get our hair styled and then go to Friendly’s and eat double banana splits. They won’t be on either of our diets, but who cares? We will be mother and daughter, and we will be able to burn off the extra calories without thought, right?

Go with you to the spa. We’ll have ‘Girls’ Day’ once a month, and we’ll soak in a hot tub up to our necks, and then put on identical white terry robes and talk Girl Talk while understanding masseuses work the kinks out of our backs with hot stones and mud wraps. And they’ll paint our finger and toenails and we’ll all giggle about whatever.

Go with you to Mother-Daughter banquets. My mom died young, and I never got to go to one. We’ll dress up alike—well, not totally alike, since we’ll probably have different fashion sense, but enough alike, so that people will know we’re together. We’ll sit side by side and we’ll comment on the layout of the table and we’ll clap for the entertainment, even if it’s bad.

Go with you to the wedding planners and help your pick out a china pattern, and then to a major bridal place, like Kleinfeld’s, and cry over every dress you model. My baby; my beloved daughter. Oh, there will be money saved, plenty for whichever dress you desire. Or we’ll go to a designer ourselves, and you will bring out the plans you sketched for your gown and I will nod and beam.

I was thirty-four when I became pregnant; long story, that. The doctors worried. They told me you would probably not make it, since an earlier fetus had not survived. I dared not love you, but how could I not? You were my longed-for

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