My Daughter Is In Love – Debra H. Goldstein

DHG Comment:  My daughter got engaged August 30, 2012.  She normally is a very private person.  The piece below was written almost three years ago after we hung up from a telephone conversation during which she first told me she was seeing Kevin exclusively.  I hope it brings back memories for you, too ….

MY DAUGHTER IS IN LOVE –

Tonight, my daughter called to tell me she is dating someone special.  My daughter is in love.    You should have heard the lilt in her voice.  She was asking my approval, but at the same time she was telling me that while it mattered, it didn’t.  She is seeing Kevin.  No question about it.

So many times we post about our fears; but, this time, I have fears that are good ones.  I’m scared whether she has picked the right boy.  I’m petrified that he’ll not love her enough or that he will love her too much.  I’m frightened that she will give up her dreams to bend to his wishes.  I’m afraid that she will place career or other distractions ahead of her heart.

No matter how much I may worry, tonight my daughter is in love.  Even though we only spoke on the telephone, I know her eyes were shining and she was grinning that little crooked smile that she only allows to show on special occasions.  Nobody else’s thoughts mattered tonight…my daughter is in love.

She told me that she feels silly because she feels good when Kevin calls her or when he walks into the room she is in.  When he strokes her hair or takes her hand, she tingles.  She actually used that word and then laughed because my daughter is not a tingly person.  My daughter is analytical.  She approaches the world carefully using her mind and senses to evaluate and make determinations.  Tonight, she giggles and literally says her intellect says one thing, but her gut says something else.   My daughter has been in the process of making a career change that probably will mean moving to another state, but tonight she isn’t sure how to balance what she knows would be a smart move in terms of her career against how she feels emotionally.  For the first time in her life, my daughter is making a decision based purely upon the feeling you get the first time you go into an ice cream store and can pick any flavor you want.  It will be a decision that hopefully reflects the peaceful sensation that comes from seeing a rainbow.  My daughter is in love.

I’ve been married so long that I don’t think of my husband with giddiness.  He is the guy who drops his socks next to the bed.  He falls asleep on the couch for two to three hours every night watching CNN or a ballgame and then tells me that he can’t sleep.  Until tonight, I forgot how much I once enjoyed his phone calls checking on me during the day.   Now, his calls often seem like annoying distractions when I’m working.  We share meals and conversation, but we have fallen into a pattern that might be called routine or even a bit boring.

My husband also is the daddy who would do anything to make his little girl laugh whenever her world seemed to be crashing.  With shaking clumsy hands, he tenderly bathed and fed her, tried to fix the bow snapped into her wisps of hair and taught her to bat a ball.  He would give his life for her.  Tonight, he is the father of a daughter who is in love and that colors my love for him.

My daughter is in love.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Debra H. Goldstein received a 2012 IPPY Award for her debut mystery, Maze in Blue.  She has won awards for both her short stories and her non-fiction pieces.  Most recently, in August 2012, her short stories  “Meme’s Place” (It Was a Dark and Stormy Night – anthology published August 2012) and “Grandma’s Garden,” http://www.Alalit.com (2012)  and a legal piece, “Practicing Social Security Law – The Best Kept Secret,” Birmingham Bar Association Bulletin, p. 26-29 (Fall 2012) [w/Jennifer Goldstein] were published.