To the child we never had. I am writing to you today because it is my wedding anniversary. And I get reflective on days like this. On each anniversary I usually feel the overwhelming sensation that I have won the Florida Lotto. Because in many ways I have.
You see, I am still very much in love with your mother after these years of marriage. And I don’t know how I found this proverbial lucky lottery ticket. But what can I say, kid? Sometimes in this life you actually win.
At one time we’d even hoped to have a son or daughter. But alas, nobody can win all the time. Thus, you exist only within my imagination.
Although I still love you a lot. And if you were here, seated on my knee, that’s exactly what we’d talk about. Love. I'd tell you everything I know about it. Because my biggest beef with my own species is that we get love all wrong.
Take me. For the first half of my life
I had no idea what the stuff was. Which is a downright tragedy. How come other creatures within the animal kingdom seem to comprehend romantic love better than we humans do?
Canada geese mate for life. Wolves do too. And whales have such elaborate courting rituals they make humans appear as sensitive as Pop Tarts.
And yet we write huge novels about love. Movies are made about it. Trillions of songs are penned about it. People are constantly trying to understand it, grappling with it, fighting for it, chasing it, or struggling to believe in it.
But somehow we still get it all wrong.
As you grow (hypothetically, of course) the first falsity they’ll teach you about romantic love is that it’s all about good looks. This is drilled into kids’ heads from infancy. Boys are taught to go looking for Jayne Mansfield, and girls are sent out…