Single mother's lament...

As usual my daughter did not want to go to bed last night.  She complained of things hurting.  She needed water.  She needed to go to the bathroom.  It was a seemingly never ending barrage of requests and complaints that continued to frustrate me to no end.  Then I lost my cool.  I yelled for her to JUST GET IN BED…NO MORE ANYTHING! She sulked and returned to her room apparently defeated.  Then as if she know exactly what would make my achilles snap she shouted from her room, “I want my daddy! Where’s my daddy?”  The words crowded in my chest and inhibited my lungs from inflating.  

I could not believe she just said that.  It was an absolute nightmare.  I have dreaded the daddy discussion from the moment the door hit him in the ass as he was running out of it.  I had no idea that it would come so soon.  I imagined that in her teen years she would sour of me and in a heated rage tell me she wanted to go live with her father or something like that.   A response to this I have planned and ready in my holster.  But not for her three year old request for her daddy.  

I bawled almost immediately out of frustration with her and that I have to tell her that her father is a ghost.  She heard me and crept down the hall asking repeatedly, “What’s the matter mommy?”  To which I could only respond by requesting that she get back in bed.  But she was relentless.  She was concerned.  I wanted to tell her I am upset because your father is an asshole and a loser.  And you deserve someone so much better than him because he is selfish and no good for anyone including himself.   But those words are reserved for her teenage years.  

Instead I escorted her back to bed and told her that she did not have a daddy.  I told her that I was both mommy and daddy because her daddy could not be a good daddy.  I told her that it’s just mommy.  Mommy is the one that takes care of you.  And I will be here for you forever.  She said, “okay” in her tiniest voice.

I am not sure she understood what I was saying.  I am sure that it won’t be the last time she requests her daddy…the phantom.  I know my skin should be thicker. And I will work to be stronger.  It is enough that he broke my heart.   I can’t let him break hers too.