Dear Daughter,

I’ve waited a long time for this moment and now you’re finally of dating age. I thought this talk would come easy but I’m finding it hard to set aside the little angel that first graced my life and envision the woman you are today. So many things I wished I’d taught you, showed you, given you the opportunity to experience instead of holding you back for fear of letting you go and being alone.

Forgive me for wanting to protect you but you’re my only little girl. From the day I brought you home I’ve wanted special things for you. Not those putrid cliché things like the prince coming on a white horse to carry you away, or everybody living happily ever after. I wanted you to know that you are strong whether you’re beating down the door to get what you want or showing your vulnerability in front of someone.

I wanted you to embrace your beauty and know that anyone would be lucky to let you into their life. I wanted you to take the leaps of faith instead of letting others determine your worth. I wanted you to own who you are and never apologize for it.

Funny. I never could have had this open a conversation with my mother. I remember when I asked her how old I needed to be before I could go on my first date. She answered, one hundred and one years old. I was eleven. From that day on, she would never know a thing about my dating life. But that won’t happen to us.

I’m going to celebrate your transition. Although, dating was so very different in my day. Back then women were trying to assert their independence. They no longer wanted a man to open a door for them. They didn’t want a man to hold out a chair for them or pay for the whole meal. They wanted to go Dutch. I am woman hear me roar!

Going Dutch. That was the death of chivalry and courtship. Kids your age don’t know how to date these days. Internet dating could have been a throw back to the days of letter writing where a man had to use his intellect to make a woman swoon. Where a man professed his love and desire to have you by his side for the rest of his life. Where taking you on a first date meant asking permission from your father. When you didn’t know the touch of each other until the wedding night.

Instead, it turned into a device for liars and cheats. Men and women trolling for one another to arrange hookups. First dates taking place over a cup of coffee instead of a well-aged bottle of Merlot with the man asking what you’re looking for on the site. Then abruptly ending the date when you tell him you’re looking for a husband and kids. How are people supposed to get to know each other when they don’t know how to carry on a conversation longer than two-sentences?

But I shouldn’t tell you now not to believe in the fairytale? No. I won’t mislead you that way, my daughter. My precious Arienmiekel. Continue to believe. Love does come to those who believe. I know. I believed in your existence of being my daughter since I was in my twenties. But I wasn’t young when you finally materialized and were given to me. I was in my fifties. And I’m sorry it came so late because it gave us such a short period of time until this moment.

Mines wasn’t the first date of legendary romances. Can you imagine what the first dates of the greatest love stories in history must have been like? The first caveman asking out a woman by conking her over the head with his club and dragging her back to his cave by her hair. He may not have taken her to a nice dinner and paid for lobster, but he risked his life every day hunting ferocious beasts to bring her something to eat. They drank the elixir of blood – for wine hadn’t been invented.

Some first dates were forbidden and not meant to kindle. Upon his initial glimpse of the golden-haired siren, Paris couldn’t resist the prize promised to him in the Judgement of Paris by the goddess Aphrodite. Despite being the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, his desire to capture the heart of the most beautiful woman in the world was worth his sending men into war and to die. Abduction was the perfect first date for Helen of Troy who rejoiced in the carnage she caused and raised a goblet of stomped red wine with her latest admirer.

What about the first date of Mark Antony and Cleopatra? How many military strategy sessions did they engage in before letting red wine and candlelight tie them together in marriage, with children, for history? As they became increasingly reliant on each other to progress in their campaigns for power, was it Antony or Cleopatra who enlisted the moonlit waters of the Nile to captivate the other? Was the date so successful that Antony carried out the execution of Arsinoe, Cleopatra’s sister, at her request to prove his love or to get more money for his next invasion?

I could go on and on, my daughter, with the stories of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Romeo and Juliet, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, George and Martha Washington, John Rolfe and Pocahontas, Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln, Mary Godwin Shelley and Percy Shelley but you know I would just be putting off the inevitable.

You and he were so young when the accident left you both in these vegetative states. His parents and I agreeing to send you off together as your first dates. It’s been fifteen years, but the time has come. He flat lined an hour ago. I know you’re going to be late, but I needed more time to get you ready. Well, to get me ready. Don’t be mad. I brought a nice bottle of Merlot to share just like you always wanted to order once you became old enough to date.

I know I can’t keep you my little girl forever, so I’ll play the Stevie Wonder song Isn’t She Lovely as they send you off to venture into your next phase. Take care, Arienmiekel. I’ll love you ‘til the end of my time.

Daddy

“Doctor. You can turn off the machines now.”

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