About this blog

My only daughter's name is Clea. Clea was six years and nine months old and she was enjoying a family holiday in Samoa when the ocean surged as a wall, ten metres high, and drowned her. Many other people died that morning of 29 September 2009.
The other four members of her family survived the tsunami.
Life has never been the same since. It will never be the same. This blog features memories, reflections, poetry, etc...
Just let me stay with her under this moon,
hold her in my arms, spin her in the air,
with my dear daughter in some timeless swoon.

Thursday 3 January 2013

Happy 10th Birthday, Clea















You are ten years old today, Babita. You know you will always be mi Babita. Siempre. Ten years ago you made me feel the most special, the most fortunate man on the planet.

I wish we could hug you, and make a cake for you, and put 10 candles on the pinkish icing. I wish we could give you the presents you wanted for your tenth birthday, Clea Soledad.

Today I have bought pink roses at the market in Da Lat, Babita. I have bought them for you. I cannot take them with me all the way to Gungahlin, Clea. So I guess I will have to leave them somewhere, perhaps under one of those beautiful bottlebrush trees that grow tall and proud by the lake in Da Lat.

I wish, I wish, I wish. Te quiero, Babita, Siempre.

Papa.

2 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday to Clea and her family today. I wish for Clea and for you that she could be with you right now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Happy birthday to dear Clea for last Thursday. My birthday is the following day, so I will think of her each year. I wish she could have eaten her cake, and smelled those beautiful pink roses. xxx

    ReplyDelete

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