Dear Hildegaard

2 A.M.s and best friends

Dear Hildegaard,

I read somewhere that I’m not supposed to call you my best friend. 

It puts pressure on you when you need me to be your mother first. Which makes sense. And I don’t want to mess you up, so I will try not to say it too often. But…it’s true. You are my best friend. And I think I am yours. At least, until your dad gets home each day.

In the stillness of so many 2 A.M.s, when no one else was awake, you and I would sit up and rock together in a chair. I would tell you all the things I was thinking and you would lean your head on my chest. Sometimes, we would watch Gilmore Girls downstairs until we both got sleepy enough to return to bed. 

Now, in the middle of the day, when kids are at school and adults are at work, we sit in the dirt together, finding sticks and rocks we like in the backyard. You bring me crushed dandelions and I save them in a pile. You crawl in and out of the garden planter boxes. I leave my cell phone in the house. We listen for birds. 

Sometimes it feels like we are the only two people in the world. 

I know it’s a short season before you grow up and go to school, make your own friends, and become much less dependent on me, but for now: we are a duo. A team. A pair of dusty girls, sitting in the grass, watching ants create a new house, because you knocked over the first one they built.

In this same article, the author said that children shouldn’t have to feel responsible for their parent’s emotions. They shouldn’t have to bear the weight of their mom’s issues or dad’s trauma. In fact, children don’t even know how to regulate their own emotions without someone showing them. It all made sense. I will do my best to save those things for my adult friends and counselors and your dad. He is a good listener. But I want you to know that you can put all the weight on me, whenever you need to. I won’t be burdened. I was made to hold your heart. 

And I have someone who holds my heart, so I don’t get too weighed down. His name is God. You’ve met him. You talk to him sometimes. I hear you chat and babble, and I imagine (and I think I am right) that you are telling God about all that you see and think and how you feel about the things you are learning. He is already your friend. He watched you meet that kitten today, the one who lives with his brothers and sisters in the woodpile behind our garage. And he saw you delight in the softness of that creature’s fur and tiny meow, how you marveled and smiled and then eventually sobbed because it was too much joy to hold inside a mere smile. 

Sometimes we cry when we are happy. Isn’t that strange?

I want you to know that you’re my best friend, not because you need to fulfill that “best friend” role in my life or be anything other than my daughter, but because I want you to always know how much I love spending time with you. That just sitting in the same room with you will always be my favorite. And hearing your thoughts will always feel like a gift. And reading you a book will never get tiresome.

I have hidden Brown Bear a few times, to give myself a break, but I would read Brown Bear to you every day for the rest of your life if that’s what you want. I do hope we eventually move on to Anne of Green Gables, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Giver, and Dandelion Wine, though, because I want to watch your eyes light up when Jonas discovers snow for the first time, when Gilbert falls in-love with Anne, and when Douglas Spaulding realizes what is means to be alive.

There is so much good ahead. 

Cover image by Lennart Uecker.