My Kid's Childhood If I Die

I wrote my first letter to my baby today. I bought a hot pink moleskin when I was in Florida and I've decided to write notes to her as she grows up that she can read when she is older. I hope I stick with this project, and it's not like so many others I've started and failed to see through.

I have an overactive imagination that keeps my sometimes solitary life both entertaining and at times a bit morose. So I often imagine what life would be life for my husband, or my family, or my baby if I died suddenly. Maybe this is due to all the time I spent reading young adult fiction about orphans, or maybe it has something to do with the fact that all the fairy tale characters I loved as a kid seemed to have dead mothers.

Anyway, in my imagination my husband moves on pretty quickly after my death because he is a logical, efficient boy who will find a long grieving period impractical. It might actually be a time of great fun for him, because he'll be a successful, young widower- practically a fairy tale prince to women in some of the communities he'll be working in.

Especially, if he ends up in this small town in Russia where the women actually seek out the guys who work for his company and a high percentage of the men who work in that town end up bringing a Russian wife home, or mixed up in a very messy divorce. D. visited their once and said the women were spectacular looking with a strange mix of Asian and Russian features that was very alluring.  I don't take any of this personally, by the way. I want him to be happy when I'm gone, and hopefully end up with a wife who is a better cook than I am, and a saner mother-figure that I will be. Any who, I digress.

My husband's future wife, Sasha?

My mom and dad keep my memory alive for my daughter when they see her over summers. I imagine her visiting them every summer, and having a real Tom Sawyer-like childhood, spending her days fishing with cousins, running up and down the beach barefoot, and listening to stories her grandfather tells her. In my imagination she is a pretty happy kid, doing all the the things my parents wanted me to do but didn't have time to let me do. And at night they'll tell her things like, "your mom used to sing in her sleep," or "your mom always had to put her own spin on things," or "your mom used to love classical guitar music" etc., etc, so my daughter feels like she knows me.

One day, when she is old enough to appreciate it, my husband or mom will give her this pink moleskin notebook filled with love letters to her from me. And she will keep it by her bed to comfort her when she is sad. Or she'll read it once, put it in a box, and focus on more pressing matters (she is her father's child, after all), like learning Japanese and Russian from her awesomely hot step mom.

Yeah, there might be something wrong with me.