Daddy,

I’m almost 18 and you still grab my hand to walk across the street. I feel like I didn’t get to grow up with you. After you and my mom broke up when I was two, I lost you.

All these old feelings of fear and sadness are coming up again because you’re going away. Even though I hardly see you, it feels so different when you’re on deployment. I wish you didn’t have to go. Six months in Afghanistan is too long. But I know you like to go. You like the thrill of danger and the glamor of being a hero. I don’t want to lose you again. It’s already hard enough saying goodbye after a two-week visit.

I really resent our superficial conversations and that you don’t really know who I am. We talk on the phone maybe three times a week and yet we’re no closer. It’s almost funny that the phone messages you’ve left me over the years have been exactly the same, “Hi sweetie! It’s your Daddy! Just calling to say I love you and I’ll talk to you later. Bye!! mwah! mwah! (kissing noises)!!” If only I could tell you everything and you could truly listen and not get upset. Then you might learn to know me. You still have time to be my daddy.

I remember the first time when you went to Iraq. The kids in my middle school all thought it was so cool that you were there and I pretended that it actually was cool. But inside I was terrified. Before you left that time, I remember searching all over my house for something I could send you; a little part of me. I ended up beading you a bracelet and I think you wore it the whole time.

I didn’t tell you that I cried for days, last week, after you told me you were going again. I tried to call you and tell you but you dismissed my concern and we fell into our usual superficial chatter for the millionth time.

I’m counting on you to make it through these next six months because you still have time to be my daddy. I’m almost 18 and you still grab my hand across the street but maybe that’s why I don’t pull my hand away.

Your Daughter, age 18