Birthday present

My second daughter was six when her dad left for Iraq with the military. He was gone for 15 months, with two weeks home in the middle. She adored her father. The two of them got along better than she did with me, her mother. It was hard to wait for him.

We had said goodbye to him in a Radisson hotel in Casper, Wyoming, four hours from our home. His return came much nearer, about an hour away. I went with my six children around me, waiting in the crowd of excited people. It was a military function; as such we didn’t know the exact day and time to expect him until a few days before. Her eighth birthday was coming around that time, so he sent her a present in advance, an enormous stuffed panda. She loved it. Pandy reminded her of Dad.

The real blessing came at noon on her birthday: he arrived. We hugged him and laughed and all the children talked at once at the tops of their voices. The only one not over the top with excitement was our six month old baby girl, snug in her sling on my body. A newspaper photographer caught our joyful expressions and showed us to the world. We were all over-the-moon happy, but my daughter had the best: her birthday present was her dad.