The picture she drew was of me and her. Normally, I wouldn’t think too much of it, but since we had just come off of one of the rockiest weekends yet, I was a little more tuned in to whatever cues she was giving me about how she was feeling.
It seemed like she was paying more attention to me than normal. Pax on the other hand seems unphased by our disaster weekend, but a small part of me still wonders if it affected him and he is just too young to show it. Ella is talking about me all the time, wanting to play together and just be together. Her picture is what broke through the loudest.
we are both working at mending our relationship
Not because it was a picture of anything specific, I am just a big round head with hair and she is a yellow blur in the background. But it was what finally made me ask myself, “Why is she paying so much attention to me, all of a sudden?”
I know I’ve felt guilty, and I’ve tried to apologize. It’s harder to forgive myself than it is for them to forgive me, I think. But I have also been more purposeful about spending time with them since “that weekend” and have tried to spend time doing what they love. I want things to go back to how they were and to just forget about my outburst.
So her painting of us together with our names, her interest in my friends at work, her asking for me to take her to ballet…It seems we are both working at mending our relationship, if only subconsciously on her part.
At the breakfast we went to at her school, she got to introduce me to the other dads sitting at our table and share something she thinks is funny about me. I didn’t know how much she and Pax loved it when I chase them around the house, but that was her answer. Now when I come home from work I’m greeted immediately with requests to ‘press my nose’ to turn on the robot that will run around all crazy…I’m thankful for their forgiveness and for second chances…and I revel in these evenings of laughter that help to heal our hearts.
