January 13, 2026
Dear Sophia,
You’ve got a tag on your foot, which I believe means you’re on parole.
“Her heart rate is perfectly regular,” says the perfectly lovely pediatrician.
I cried when I got my German cousin Fiona’s responses to my videos and photos:
Gratulation, was für ein schönes Baby. Wir sind ganz begeistert und meine Mutter kann gar nicht aufhören das Video anzuschauen. We love it
Which is German for: Congratulations—what a beautiful baby! We are absolutely thrilled, and my mom simply can’t stop watching the video. We love it!
And responding to the next batch:
Wir sind ganz verliebt und freuen uns für Euch. Schade dass ihr so weit weg seid, meine Mutter würde sie am liebsten in die Arme nehmen.
So ein schönes Kind und schon so lange Haare.
We are absolutely in love and so happy for you both. It’s a shame you live so far away—my mother would love nothing more than to hold her in her arms!
Such a beautiful child—and such long hair already!
I wonder, how well will you ever know me? To be known by, say, a twelve-year-old is quite different from being known by a 17-year-old, and that teenager will in turn ask different questions and be able to understand fewer things than a 25-year-old. At each of those ages and, embarrassingly, the age I was when my mother died, I showed absurdly little curiosity about her. Asked too few questions. I know so little about the circumstances of my own birth, whether I was breastfed, if so for how long. I can only recall a few things I was told. When I was born I kicked over the IV stand, a fact presented to me as so unusual that I later turned it into the sentence, I was born pissed off. And I was a colicky baby, did lots of crying, I have gathered.
But I am acutely aware that I will likely leave this world well before most of your curiosity and your questions about my life and thought, and I think I feel a sense of loss for both of us.
Your Grandma, Froncé, and Great Aunt (Awesome Aunt, to be honest) Prudence arrive. As I hand you over, I look at your pinkish skin. I had not imagined your being so light in color. I had imagined a light brown, like coffee with twice as much milk as your mom’s skin. People are going to wonder who your mother is.
“I’m sorry she’s white,” I say, as I hand you over. Froncé takes you from me.
* * *
Cluster feeding and fussiness most of the day. You can’t find the nipple in your mouth.
Black tar is sticky and looks terrible but it doesn’t smell at all. It’s practice poop.
I had to change you out of the black tar you’d put yourself in. You hated it. The only time you cried for more than a breath or two. And your eyes, when I was done, were wide open. Your eyes now opened to the inhumanity of man against man.
Later, I write:
God I love this baby. I love having her skin on my chest. I love comforting her when she cries by caressing her head in the bassinet and uttering soft words, or bouncing her gently in my arms as I sing nonsense songs to her. You’re a good girl, such a good girl, you’re the rest of daddy’s life, you and your mom’s, you and your mom, the rest of daddy’s life. I love cleaning her of the black tar that seems to flow from her end without end, lovingly returning her skin to its rosy pink and putting on her diaper. I love learning how to properly swaddle her so she’ll relax or sleep like a little mummy, or a burrito.
Today Froncé and Prudence came to the hospital room, then Pop-pop Mike and Aunt Erin, then Uncle Tedd and Erin again. Tedd brought some sushi rolls and flowers. He had guessed Leah may have been craving sushi, or I had told him. He took photos of our baby on my chest, on Leah, and spoke animatedly with Leah and Erin about the birth, from the long labor at home to the transfer and the wonderful staff at Virginia Hospital Center. He also mentioned again how sad he will be to see us all go to Houston. I am too. But it’s “an experiment,” I kept insisting mostly for my overall benefit. There are potential advantages to my not working alone anymore for the first time since 2009, and not doing all my networking and client development solo.
You will be a Texan soon. But first, four months of being a Virginian . . .