Dear Compass,
(See, I told you I'd find out your name.)
Happy Valentine's Day. I would send you a large box of sweets, but I'm sure you'd never get it, so I'm sending you chocolate thoughts instead. You've been in the world for a whole month and a half, clever girl. How do you like it so far?
An obliging and shockingly underpaid nurse smuggled a picture to me. You looked pinched and red and richly cheesed off, but I'm sure in time you'll be beautiful. How could you not? You've been given a genetic headstart. Just don't rely on it to get you through life. Sometimes the most beautiful things end up with bugs, if they're not careful.
I'll bet you have no idea why you were given such an unusual name: Compass Rose. I know the story. I was there. I'll tell you sometime, but you'll have to ask. That's how I plan to assure myself of future conversation, by dangling carrots of information just in front of your wee button nose. I'm patient; I'll wait until you have some language. And an attention span.
Hugs to you then, little daughter. Do something horrible in a nappy, and I'll give you twenty quid.
yer ever-lovin'
Pa
Lost Letters: 1
Dear Child,
Welcome to the world! Sorry if this letter is late or premature -- or if you were, since preemies run through my pieces of your genetic jigsaw puzzle.
Willem, your incubator, is hiding from me and won't talk to me, so the exact date of your birth was/is/will be a bit of a mystery. Fortunately, money is the world's greatest detective. Money can find you under rocks, it can locate you in the dank hole of a cave, zero in on you in a crowd. And I have money. She can bury you in small town Central Illinois (or so rumor has it), but money can dig you up. It may be slow -- you may be as much as a month old, your eyes open for 30 days and closed for 30 nights before I know for sure you've arrived, but before your 31st morning breaks, I'll know your name.
This morning I posted your mother a dragonfly to celebrate your birth. There's nothing special about it -- nothing valuable -- but it's wee and fragile like you, and it'll freak your mother out.
I'll write again soon. Breathe deeply, if you're out here with us. But if you're still in there, I'll give you 20 quid to kick her in the spleen.
Love from your
Dad
Welcome to the world! Sorry if this letter is late or premature -- or if you were, since preemies run through my pieces of your genetic jigsaw puzzle.
Willem, your incubator, is hiding from me and won't talk to me, so the exact date of your birth was/is/will be a bit of a mystery. Fortunately, money is the world's greatest detective. Money can find you under rocks, it can locate you in the dank hole of a cave, zero in on you in a crowd. And I have money. She can bury you in small town Central Illinois (or so rumor has it), but money can dig you up. It may be slow -- you may be as much as a month old, your eyes open for 30 days and closed for 30 nights before I know for sure you've arrived, but before your 31st morning breaks, I'll know your name.
This morning I posted your mother a dragonfly to celebrate your birth. There's nothing special about it -- nothing valuable -- but it's wee and fragile like you, and it'll freak your mother out.
I'll write again soon. Breathe deeply, if you're out here with us. But if you're still in there, I'll give you 20 quid to kick her in the spleen.
Love from your
Dad
Lost Letters: Introduction
Dear Compass,
Before I left England for here (and where 'here' is is for me to know and your mother to fret over), I had a quick rummage round and found a box of letters I'd written to you but never mailed. They date back to around the time of your birth and run up nearly to the present. With some sizeable gaps, I'll admit. I would claim the gaps are the result of despair over ever finding you again, but more accurately I got lazy. It's difficult to keep writing without hope of response -- rather like talking to God, I suppose. I keep sending my pleas and prayers out into the ether, and they keep being ignored or at least unanswered. So I offer you this virgin sacrifice: the unread letters, father to daughter, of the past 39 years.
Before I left England for here (and where 'here' is is for me to know and your mother to fret over), I had a quick rummage round and found a box of letters I'd written to you but never mailed. They date back to around the time of your birth and run up nearly to the present. With some sizeable gaps, I'll admit. I would claim the gaps are the result of despair over ever finding you again, but more accurately I got lazy. It's difficult to keep writing without hope of response -- rather like talking to God, I suppose. I keep sending my pleas and prayers out into the ether, and they keep being ignored or at least unanswered. So I offer you this virgin sacrifice: the unread letters, father to daughter, of the past 39 years.
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