Jamila

I had a dream last night about my stepdaughter, Jamila. I dream of her fairly often, much more often than I dream of my other kids. Strange. I wonder why this is the case. There is nothing particularly notable about the dreams. Generally they involve meeting again after this long while that I have not seen her. I reckon it must be going on ten years now. I pick her out from the midst of the other characters in the dream, whomever they might be, and I am filled with a feeling of joy at seeing her again. Often we will embrace. I am filled with a sense of amazement at the woman she has become, an adult, nearly 40 years old now.

Jamila was a special, unusually charismatic kid. I was with her, as her stepfather, from about 1991 to 2004. She was relentlessly, irrepressibly fun and seemed to make something uncommon even of the most common things—going to the grocery store, or the mall, or the park, or what have you. She was always playing—a virtual poster girl for the old expression “You play too much.” She was the sort of girl who made even waiting for the bus a fun activity. She was bright in a quick-witted way, lively, full of heart and laughter, and she was beautiful, and knew it. She enjoyed wrapping people, like me, around her little finger. She was ready to talk to anyone, relate to anyone, befriend anyone. As my uncle once said, Jamila didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘enemy’.  

Jamila was truly one of the most unusual, and one of the most pleasant people I have ever known. I miss her. I think that I never laughed so much in my life as I did with Jamila. I guess that’s why I dream about her. Of course, she was not always pleasant. She could be spoiled and headstrong, and did have a temper. As with most Aquarians, though, her temper was a brief fire that soon burned itself out. I always thought that Jamila had the bubbly, cheerful, boisterous side of her mother while Ja’nat, the older stepdaughter, ended up with the harsher, more deliberative side.

I know that I have disappointed Jamila. Of course I have. I have disappointed myself as well. I know this. But I just wish that she would know that I love her, that I cherish the memory of those days spent as her father, that I regret the events that have separated us through all these years. Whatever else I meant myself to be, I never meant to not be her father. But one cannot live more than one life at once, can he?  And daughters, and sons as well, must cease to be children.

I think, now, that I shall never see Jamila again. I think it unlikely that I will see any of my children again. Instead, therefore, I dream.