devilsfool:

We didn’t conceive you in the normal way one comes by a child. I wish I could say you were made in love, but the entire world knows by now that your conception was fueled by desperation–though I’d beg that, at the end of that dark and frightened tunnel was more love than I properly knew what to do with. 

So you were born in darkness and desperation. But you quickly became the light around which our lives revolved. 

I came here tonight intending to write a passionate discourse about your life, but all I can focus on is your absence. Do you know how keenly I feel it? How keenly we both feel it?

You no longer lie as a chasm between us, as the ghost that haunts every word we utter to each other, every stolen moment or intimate touch. But you are still there. You are not forgotten. 

Tonight the flat is covered in flowers for you. They are on every conceivable surface–I went a bit overboard this time, though I’m not sorry for it. …He will chastise me a bit for it, of course, especially because it will overwhelm him, but he is the one who explained to me that we must each learn to grieve in our own way. This is mine. 

Je t’aime, ma fille. Then, now, always. 

Bon anniversaire.