What luck, that you are my daughter
When she wants me, she has never once checked what I got right first. My daughter did not make me worth something. She made me believe, for the first time, that I was already blessed.
What luck, that you are my daughter
Picked Mumu up today. She saw me, laughed so hard the tears came, and flew across the floor at me.
I wrote that line in April 2022. She could not walk yet.
She needed nothing right from me. She just needed me.
Need without conditions
Before she could walk or crawl, she would wake and cry for someone. I walked in, and the crying turned into a smile with tears still on it.
Then she could crawl. She would crawl to the door, bang on it, cry for someone. She saw me the way you see a rescue.
Then she could walk. She opened the door herself and came at me at a run. The bigger she got, the heavier, until Dad was the only one who could catch her.
She wakes up and checks the study first: “Dad, my tummy is hungry.”
At the stairs: “Dad, carry me up.”
Before a dance or a song: “Dad, you have to sit in the front row. Then I won’t be scared.”
“Dad, where are you? You said you’d stay with me.”
“With Dad here I get really good. But Dad isn’t allowed to be better than me.”
Every one of these has the same shape. None of them checks what I did, or what I achieved. No conditions at all.
Love without conditions
“Dad, I want to stay next to you.”
“Dad, you’re a good dad.”
“You’re my best present. I love you too.”
“It’s so good having you next to me.”
“Dad, after school is fun. It’s more fun when you come get me.”
“Dad, why is it always so happy with you?”
One pickup I asked her: “When is Dad happiest?” She said, “When he sees Mumu.” I asked, “When is Mumu happiest?” She said, “When she sees Dad.”
The scarcity loop
Like a lot of Taiwanese families, money was tight. I grew up thinking my arrival had not made my parents’ life any better. Like a lot of families, the adults had a line they kept saying: if we hadn’t had kids back then, if we hadn’t married, today would look like more than this. Everyone did their best. Nothing more to say about it.
That became a great deal of thrust. Push hard, make something of yourself, prove you exist. Not much attention left for taking care of myself. Life felt like a jungle, dangerous by nature, with nothing in it worth staying for. But I still wanted proof that I had been here — so I tried to live like a firework. One bang, bright enough that everyone sees, then quiet. As if I had never come.
Underneath all of it is one loop, running on scarcity: useful, therefore needed; needed, therefore safe; safe, therefore here. It ran for thirty-odd years. It carried a boy with nothing to where I am. It earned its keep. It was also a cage.
A blessing is received
When she wants me, she does not check what I got right.
Children are a gift from God. For the first time in my life, I agreed that I was blessed — because I felt a love and a need from a child that asked me for nothing first.
My daughter did not make me worth something. She made me believe, for the first time, that I was already blessed.
“Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.” (Psalm 127:3)
What fills the scarcity is giving, and being loved. Loved by God first — then the giving has somewhere to go.
What you hold in your hands turns to dust. Only what you give away has a chance of staying in the world.
Not for her. Because of her.
Just before she turned four, I asked her about sleeping on her own.
“Dad, I don’t want to grow up. I don’t want to sleep alone. I want to see you.”
“You can grow up and still sleep with Dad.”
“I don’t want to grow up, because then I won’t see you.”
“Dad’s asleep in the next room. You can still find Dad.”
“But when I get really, really big, you’ll be gone.”
That day it took me a long time to answer.
“Mumu, when you are really, really, really big — take your time getting there. One day Dad will be waiting at the door for you. Like school letting out: you see Dad, you run over, Dad catches you. Deal?”
She nodded hard and said, delighted: “You have to come get me, Dad. Then I’ll grow up.”
Since she came, I pay attention to my health. I train. I want to live long and live well, and be there for as much of her life as I can. Not for her. Because of her.
When a child’s eyes are full of stars, you don’t tell her how dark it is out there
In 2010 I wrote a line online: you can see the stars because it is dark around them.
One day we were playing our chase-the-stars game, and I was reading her a picture book about a girl who goes to space.
“Mumu, do you want to be an astronaut? Ride a rocket up and see the stars?”
“No.”
“Why not? You said the stars and the sky were fun.”
“I just don’t. I want to stay home.”
“Why?”
“Because home is warm.”
Sixteen years and one daughter between those two lines. Here is the one I write now:
When a child’s eyes are full of stars, you don’t tell her how dark it is out there.
Child, what luck that I get to be your father.