so this guy said

I have a newish friend, a man the same age as my daughter. He likes me. I like him.  I have, sometimes, strong maternal urges towards him.  He is an unusual guy.  He just quit one of his jobs to become a nanny for a newborn. The newborn's father is a psychiatrist, male, who came to realize he was sure he wanted to have a child but he was not clear he would marry. So he hired a surrogate and now has his month old son. Approximately one month.

My friend has never been around kids, much less infants, before he started to tend this little boy. Neither has the father. And no, my friend is not the lover of the baby's father and he is not gay and neither is the baby's father. The world is changing and men let themselves have children, sometimes, without female life partners.

My pal, let's call him Bob (not his name), does not trust himself to learn to distinguish the baby's sounds and cries. I told him today that babies make restless sounds, hurt sounds, hungry sounds, needing-a-nap or diaper change sounds. After Bob left today, I googled something about babies and came upon a website that suggested that some people never get to understand a baby's different sounds.

Huh.  When I have tended babies closely, and my daughter was not the first baby I tended*, I often did not need to hear any sound from the babies. I would simply intuit what they needed. My intuition was very strong about my daughter. I would know she was going to want to nurse an hour before she did, and I would know she'd want to drink in an hour. I once told her father "We shouldn't go out to brunch today [my first Mother's Day with no reservations] because we'd have a long wait for a table on such a major brunch day and our baby was going to want to eat before we got seated. Plus my ex hated when I nursed our daughter in public, although I often did so.

*I was a primary caregiver for my youngest bro, who was born when I was ten. I tended him more waking hours than either of our parents until our parents divorced and our mother took him to a new state without telling where. He was 7 when she defied her divorce judge by removing my baby brother and baby sister. Sis was born when I was 13 and I was her primary caregiver.

Anyway, today Bob surprised me by bringing up my daughter. He knows I struggle, painfully, over her choice to shun me for going on 17 years (maybe longer, don't want to think the numbers through).  I have told Bob that I have been doing a pretty good job turning off my longing for my daughter, plus he does not often introduce topics into our talks.

He said "I've been thinking about how you feel about your daughter. I wonder if it might help you if you could see she is flawed, not perfect, maybe even not nice. Well, duh. A daughter that took took took from me and then when she had bled me dry and I wobbled as I faced an empty nest, she shed me like dead skin but kept the expensive education, arts training and the proceeds of my duplex that could be giving me a comfortable income in retirement. Instead it gave her an Ivy degree. I believe she thinks she did it all on her own. There, I am feeling lots of pain again so I'll wrap this up.

I surprised Bob when I said "I know her choices related to me are cunty. I shared the story of my sister showing me brochures for my daughter's early college. Sis said "I think you should let her leave h.s. after her sophomore year and have her go to this school. I think if you live two more years with you, you will be dead because she is so mean to you and you don't even seem to notice."

I noticed. And when I shared this little story with Bob, he was surprised. I think he thought I had only fluffy love for my beloved child. I do block out her callous disregard of me and I blocked it out when she lived with me as a young child and teen.

She's a feckless cunt, at least as far as I am concerned. As I relayed a few stories to Bob today, about my daughter, he seemed relieved to learn I saw some of her negativity. And the talk with Bob helped me. Bob is not my shrink, btw. He is my housecleaner. 

I believe loving her around her callous shunning of me is hugely iportant. I believe my unconditional love, even without contact between us, is real energy that buoys her and guoys me. I thought, after Bob left today, of Shakepeare's Sonnet 116 which is, most believe, a romantic love sonnet but it speaks so beautifully about human love. I shared with Bob the geat line from sonnet 116 that says 'love admits no impedments'. Loving her is about who  I am. Holding her in my heart, loving her, matters. It matters to me and my belief system says it matters to her whether she knows it consciously or not.

A week from today she turns 36. I have not seen her, other than one abusive glimpse a couple years ago, since she was 17. I have never known her as an adult. How to bear such a grievous loss?  On my good days, I bear it by allowing myself to love her.

Bob seemed a little surprised but also glad to hear my perspective.