Sixteen years ago I held her for the first time.
Today, I’ll tell her happy birthday by phone, text, social media — everything but in person, because I’ll be working and she’s a state away, where she lives with her mom, step-dad and a couple of her siblings, plus a dog and a couple of cats.
My hurt ... uh, I mean my heart ... is filled with emotions. I am so proud to be her dad, so happy to know the young lady she is, so bursting with love for my baby girl. That’s who she’ll always be — my baby girl.
I remember her dark complexion as a baby, in such contrast to her light skin tone now. Her black hair pulled up in pigtails, her big eyes shining and curious gaze always looking around.
She was very quiet most of the time, only talking a lot when she was playing, letting her imagination soar. Not much has changed.
This introspective girl, who’d rather be curled up in our laps or just left alone, who’d nevertheless follow her oldest brother anywhere even if he made her cry, who always wanted to look pretty no matter what she was doing, always figured out for herself how to do things.
I took the kids to a Chinese buffet once when she was maybe 4 and she sat silently holding chopsticks, her plate of shrimp, noodles and sweet-and-sour chicken sans sauce before her. She was no stranger to the cuisine, but had not yet used chopsticks.
She studied her siblings and me, looked at her chopsticks and her food, then plunged the end of one stick into a piece of chicken and ate it. Who needs chopsticks when you can eat with chopstick?
She’s so artistic. I mean with anything that falls under the umbrella of arts. If if is under that umbrella, she either does it or is eager to. She draws, paints, sings, dances, plays more than one instrument, acts, writes and creates in any other way she can.
She’s beautiful, on the outside and as a person. I’ve seen her do without or go out of her way to help someone she doesn’t know or to offer them encouragement. A couple of years ago, I took her to summer camp at Mississippi School of the Arts. After orientation, we walked toward the doors.
“Just a minute, Dad,” she said and hurried over to a girl nearby. She said something to her, they both smiled and she came back to me.
“Is that someone you already knew?” I asked.
“No, sir. She just didn’t look happy, so I complimented her shirt and hair. I wanted her to smile, too,” she said.
I was so proud of her I almost cried right there.
But the thing I love most about her is she knows Jesus loves her and she loves Jesus, too. For all these reasons, I wish my daughter Emma a happy, sweet 16th birthday.
You’ll always be my baby girl.
Brett Campbell can be reached at ChunkyBrett@mail.com.
