“How about I let you sleep with Huggy?” I said. Huggy is my Dad’s old pillow. It was the pillow he was using up to the day he died and, for some reason, I’ve had it almost ever since. It’s falling apart, has been put into a new casing so that its stuffing doesn’t come out and is much worse for the wear. But I sleep with it every night. In fact, I can’t sleep without it. It’s become my teddy bear.
Gert agreed, so I went and got Huggy. I kneeled down next to her bed and explained that it was a very special pillow and she should take good care of it.
“Okay, Daddy,” she said. Then she got a pensive look on her face. “Why do you have your daddy’s pillow?”
“Well, since he’s not here it reminds me of him. Sometimes I miss him.”
“Did your daddy die?”
“Yes he did. So since I can’t see him whenever I want, I like to have this pillow.”
“And your mommy died too?” she asked.
“Yes she did.”
“Do you have any special mommy things?”
“Yes, that afghan on the couch was my mom’s. She made that.”
“I cuddle with that blanket,” she exclaimed. “It keeps me warm!”
“That’s right,” I told her. “Because my mommy made it it can keep you extra warm. Like a mommy hug.”
Then she looked at me funny and told me about a dream she had the night before, a dream she had shared with her mom earlier that night.
“Someone was brushing my hair,” she said, with a look of worry, “but it wasn’t you or mommy.”
“Hmmm,” I thought and then I got a little gooey. “Maybe it was my mommy brushing your hair. Maybe since she never got to meet you, she comes in your dreams to spend time with you.”
“Yeah,” she said happily, “it was my Grandma Rita!” (And because of this conversation, I can’t get this song out of my head).
I gave her a hug and kiss and hushed her down with lullabies, as is her wont. As I started to leave, Gertrude stopped me.
“Daddy, you don’t have to be lonely for your mommy and daddy,” she said. “You have me now.”
Later, when I checked on her she was hugging Huggy tight to her chest as she slept.
Sometimes I wonder exactly what I did to deserve a child that is this sweet and loving. She loves everything with such a passion that, honestly, I think we could all learn a lesson from her. She doesn’t hold back at all. If she loves, she loves fully. Even people she’s never met, who died long before she was born.
For the rest of us, we may have to live with regrets. Like Woody Guthrie wrote towards the end of his life:
Sometimes I think I'm gonna lose my mind
But it don't look like I ever do
I've loved so many people everywhere I went
Some too much, and others not enough
Well I don't know
I may go
Down or up or anywhere
But I feel
Like this scribbling might stay
Maybe if I hadn't seen so much hard feelings
I might not could've felt other people's
So when you think of me, if and when you do
Just say, "Well, another man's done gone"
My little Gertrude will never have that kind of regret.
Wow, Gary, that story almost made me cry. My dad died years ago. We didn't really get along. The day my daughter was born, I told her that things would be different. She's already turning out to be a wonderful child.
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