For the next couple of minutes all I could manage to do was concentrate on pushing the increasing amount of saliva building in my mouth down my throat when gratefully her mother broke the awkward silence.
She told us how well my baby was doing in school, how popular she is and about how many little friends she had, and making her blush enough to hide her face away from me, her mother bragged about all of her accomplishments.
I giggled in all the appropriate places and was just as embarrassed for her as she was as her mother continued on about her and all the events in her life that I had missed. At cues provided by her mother I asked the little girl about her favorite subjects in school, doing my best to not show how I beamed brightly inside that we like the same things.
Then her mother stood and left us alone to talk, it was the most bittersweet moment of my life at that point and I could not think of one single thing to say to my half grown girl, this beautiful young lady was no longer 'my' baby girl. She had become just as much of a stranger to me as I must have been to her.
My mind pursued fanatically through emptiness and I became very angry with myself, that as intelligent as I thought myself to be, with as many times as I had rehearsed this conversation filled with speeches of apologies and explanations, that at such an uncomfortable but crucial moment in my life, I couldn't think of one damned thing to say.
The seven year old stranger looked at my face in an attempt to find anything familiar and then not finding the answers that she was looking for she stated matter of factly that she was going to go play. I didn't know how to respond, she had unintentionally squashed me into nothingness with her indifference.
I got up and followed her not knowing if I should and tried to rationalize a way to deal with the avalanche of emotion that I was suddenly feeling, but the best I could do was blame myself. Had I done something to disappoint her somehow?
My thoughts panicked as I watched her run to the play area where her mother had sat down to wait for us to visit, I wanted in that moment to be someone else far away from this park, far away from people. My first instinct was to turnaround, get back into the safety of my car and drive and never looking back, but as soon as my foot left the ground I resisted.