One of my first memories, or the first that I vividly recall in full, takes place in the hallway of the first house I lived in with my parents. It was a two-family home that they bought with one of my mother’s brothers and his wife. I am not sure if I was so young that I was the only child in the house, or just young enough for there to be a few babies there too. To be honest, there could have been babies and toddlers because I have no idea how old I am.

I’m going to school – library school or kindergarten and I am in a raincoat. In my memory it’s designed like the ones old crusty fisherman wear, and yellow. I’m in the entry way with my mother waiting for the bus to come. I know it’s chilly and the rain hasn’t stopped. I am breathing on the window and rubbing my chubby little fingers through the condensation. I press my face to it, nose pushed up, and pull away only to question my mom. My father is on a business trip and I miss him, I ask her what happens if I die? She is taken aback but I think she begins to speak, only to be cut off by my clarification. What happens if I did before daddy gets home?

I remember crying a little, worrying, not that I would die, or that I would miss anyone, or not see my school friends again. I stood there, red faced and cold, like a Weeble in a raincoat, worried that my father would live a life of misery having lost his only daughter and not made it home to say goodbye.

I feel like there’s no way you’re not going to become an over thinker when you’re barely able to hop up on the toilet alone yet you’re worrying about others coping with your death.  The good news is, I survived every trip my father ever took. Some days I struggle, knowing this last trip he went on is permanent, and there are days I’m sick over having not seen him in the previous months, or called him the night before his procedure … but I am certain that he would not want me to live a life of misery losing my only father and not having made it home to say goodbye.