Letters to My Daughter

With a high ponytail, a pressed white coat, and a clipboard. This is how I imagine my daughter Emma. She’s standing in an exam room, a friendly physician assistant, but I can’t talk to her because I’m gone. Dead. I’ve also imagined seeing Emma walking down 5th Avenue in New York City. She has one child walking beside her and another in a stroller. She looks confident and seems to know where she is going. I wonder if she lives in Manhattan.

Not being able to talk to Emma is unthinkable. The thought is completely overwhelming. We talk every day by text or on the phone. How will we keep in touch?

Maybe letters would work. Emma reads like crazy and loved The Correspondent. I know she’ll want to hear from me when I’m gone, and I can’t think of a better way to stay in touch. I can tuck my letters inside her favorite books. Funny, serious, silly, and instructive. Memories like the time Emma and I laughed like lunatics because I called on boy on a train Luna instead of Luca. She thought it was hysterical. I didn’t but I joined her because her laughter got me going. We laughed with tears running down our cheeks and hands on our stomachs. Just when I thought we might pull ourselves together, we’d start laughing all over. When we share this story with people, they just look at us, and then we laugh again.

I’m writing in memory of my mom too. At first writing letters seemed like a simple solution to the fear that engulfed me as I thought about not being able to talk to Emma. I realized, as we often do later, that the impulse was also related to losing my mom. My mom died in an ambulance. I remember her closet, days after she died, more than anything else. It was long and the air was grey. I smelled her on everything: scarves, wrap dresses and blouses. She always wore wigs because she thought her hair was too thin. Seeing a row on Styrofoam heads on top of her dresser was surreal.

We never made plans to talk forever because she died so unexpectedly. She did not leave a letter for her daughter. My mom had the most beautiful, loopy handwriting and a positive outlook. Her letters would be gems. I wish I could tell my children more about my mom, but there is so much I don’t remember.

Emma and I talk about oh-my-God things and the little details of our day. I’ve writte five letters to Emma so far. It’s hard to decide what to say. I don’t want to be corny or pedantic, but being real is hard. By the time I die, I imagine thirty-six creamy sheets tucked away. This way, we’ll continue our conversations, all the touching and mundane things that combine to become a part of your evolving spirit. She’ll respond in prayer. I’ll whisper through clouds.

I would do anything for a letter from my mom. Fortunately, Emma and I will talk until the end of time.

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