Grindel's Lil' Midlife Crisis Online

I'm not even sure what direction I should approach this next topic. I don't want to come across as a jerk or stir up controversy or anything, mainly I just want to get some words down so they're out there for me to look at.

I regret that I never had a daughter of my own, to raise from birth.

Now do not get me wrong, I love my daughter. Although it's different, I love her as much as I love my son. Hell, I've helped raise her from when she was in elementary school to where she is now. But still...

But still, she calls someone else "daddy". Someone who really had very little to do with bringing her up. She doesn't look like me in any way, shape, or form and her progeny never will. When she sees me she doesn't really see a father, she sees "Chris". This bothers me probably more than it should, but it bothers me. It's not a failing in her either, it just is what it is.

And my wife is at an age where due to pre-existing conditions even if I managed to convince her to come around, it'd be horrendously selfish of me and dangerous to her for me to try and convince her to bear another child. She's closer to menopause now than to her age when she bore our son. So I guess that means that ship has sailed.

I don't know, I guess I always imagined I'd have a "daddy's little girl" to bring up, along with my son. And I am completely smitten by my baby granddaughter and she by me. I'll never treat her any differently than if she were my blood, just as I didn't treat her mother any differently. But still, that's not my baby girl. As precious as that little spirit is, as much as I will always love and cherish her, she's my daughter's baby girl and not mine.

There's a song by Stevie Wonder, probably his best in my opinion. I cry every time I hear it, both out of appreciation for how he's captured the love he has for his child, which I share and can empathize with, and out of remorse that the little baby girl's voice laughing on the track will never be the laughing voice of my little girl.

Isn't she lovely
Isn't she wonderful
Isn't she precious
Less than one minute old
I never thought through love we'd be
Making one as lovely as she
But isn't she lovely made from love

Isn't she pretty
Truly the angel's best
Boy, I'm so happy
We have been heaven blessed
I can't believe what God has done
Through us he's given life to one
But isn't she lovely made from love

Isn't she lovely
Life and love are the same
Life is Aisha
The meaning of her name
Londie, it could have not been done
Without you who conceived the one
That's so very lovely made from love

Naariah, if through some strange twist of fate you ever stumble across this page please understand that I love you as much as any man could ever possibly love his granddaughter. I can't think about you and do anything but smile. I just wish I could have made an auntie for you.