Family Day

Today in Ontario is Family Day. It’s a holiday dreamed up a few years ago by our government to give us a long weekend in the bleakness of Canadian winter. The idea is that we take a day to celebrate our families. Outdoor ice rinks are swaying, toboggan hills are shrieking, and coffee shop lineups feature more strollers than usual. It’s a day that celebrates the people who we are connected to by blood, marriage or choice. It’s my second Family Day without my daughter.

Family Day last year is a blank. I barely remember anything from January to June other than three times a week therapy, dragging myself out of bed every few days to bathe, and endless emails that begin, “I’m so sorry this is late’.

In January 2020, I received an email from my first child, my beloved daughter, Rory to my Lorelai, that explained how she had arrived at the conclusion that she no longer loves me as her mother and does not want me in her life anymore.