The Broken Girl
Two years ago, my daughter Mia would race me to the mailbox every single afternoon.
She’d hear my key in the front door and come tearing down the hallway, socks sliding on the hardwood, yelling, “Mailbox, Mom! Go, go, go!” And we’d run down the driveway together, her little legs pumping, her hair flying, and she’d always win because I always let her.
She’d stand there at the end of the driveway holding a fistful of grocery flyers and bills like she’d won a prize at the fair, grinning up at me, gap-toothed and out of breath.
“I beat you again,” she’d say.
“You sure did, baby.”
I would give anything to go back to those afternoons. Anything at all.
But you don’t get to go back. That’s the first thing life takes from you when something like this happens. It takes the going-back.
