Every morning starts out with a question like this. You might find it stupid at first, irritating in a couple of days and maddening in a week. But as a father of a beautiful 6-year-old, I can’t think of a better beginning of the new day.
-- Well, if frogs were pink, then water and leaves would probably be, too. Because frogs are green to make it easier for them to hide in plain sight…
Laugh and happy stair-stomping.
-- What if dogs could fly?! Wouldn’t that be cool? -- while munching on her cereal.
-- Yeah, that would certainly make a simple game of fetch way more… dimensional.
-- What if we could talk to animals? What if the sky was yellow and the sun blue? What if it only took you an hour to learn Spanish, but a whole week to learn French?
I close my eyes and I can see the worlds she lives in. With blue sunsets and yellow sunrises, with pink frogs leaping out of the water, with flying dogs learning Spanish. I can almost hear her practising French with her Irish teacher, who in this Universe has to look like a Leprechaun. The birds are chirping in Latin, everyone’s shoe size is unreasonably big. The cats are all purple-striped and painting the roses red (she obviously really liked the book I gave her for her birthday).
I love talking to her, relishing in her ideas, rationalising them into full ecosystems and worlds. Some days, the five impossible things we discuss in the morning are the only reason I get up. We laugh and we sing songs. I am happy to help and answer all of the “what if”’s she could possibly think of.
But one day she hits me with the one question I don’t have an answer for.
-- What if Mum were still here?
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