A small website, made on purpose

My
Favorite
Daughter.

Her name is Jeana, and this page exists for one reason only: to say so out loud.

The short version

Of all the people the world could have given me, it gave me you.

People say "favorite" like it's a joke you make when there's only one. It isn't. If there were a hundred of you, all wonderful, all mine, I'd still walk the whole line and stop at you.

You were the best thing that ever happened to me before you'd done a single thing. Everything since has just been evidence.

The long version, abbreviated

Reasons, in no particular order

01The way you laugh at your own jokes before you finish them.
02How stubborn you are about the things that actually matter.
03That you notice when someone in the room has gone quiet.
04Your terrible, excellent taste in music.
05How hard you try, even when nobody's grading it.
06The questions you ask that I don't have answers to.
07That you still tell me things.
08The person you're becoming, who I'd want to know either way.

Small things I kept

The moments that stayed

The first time

You wrapped your whole hand around one of my fingers and that was that, permanently.

Car rides

The good conversations never happen at the table. They happen at forty miles an hour, both of us looking straight ahead.

Doorways

Every time you come home, some part of me exhales that I didn't know was holding.

Ordinary Tuesdays

Nothing happening, nowhere to be, you in the next room. My favorite kind of day.

A letter

For whenever you need to read it

Jeana,

There will be days when you feel like you're not enough. I want you to know, in advance and in writing, that this is a lie, and that I have the receipts.

You don't have to earn this. You couldn't lose it if you tried, and I hope you never test it, though I suspect at some point you will, because you're mine and we're like that.

Be brave. Be kind, especially when it's inconvenient. Call me when it's bad, and call me when it's good, and call me when it's neither.

Whatever you do, wherever you go, however long it's been: you have a person. It's me. It always was.

All my love, every day, forever — Dad

"I didn't know what I was capable of loving until I met you."
Still true

And in case there was ever any doubt

You're my favorite.

— Dad