Projection

What does having a child born and abandoned in China and having a huge box leftover in your living room have to do with each other? On the face of it, nothing. Yet, when my daughter wants to play house in her box, sitting it on the couch and then sitting inside of it herself - i can't help but wonder about her first few days... cliches and realities about babies left in baskets and boxes for strangers to find are not "stories' as in fiction but life stories for some.

So, her fun living room play takes me away to a moment in her earliest life that I will never know. It's fine, a voluntary trip I can take and come back from, in my mind. But, as someone who has never met my own biological father, I wonder about the future young woman who is now my little girl and the things and moments and times her mind or heart or spirit will flee for a moment and attach itself to something innocent, a box, and I ache a little.

How to prepare for those moments which she may not even voice or express but which might catch her for a moment the way I was caught today, but deeper... no answers. Too many no answers in parenting...

She said today, I am only going to love you and Daddy. I said, "We love you too but I hope you meet lots of people you will love." She said, "I'm only going to love people who love me." There's was some sadness and some wisdom in those words.