“Daddy?”, A small girl whispers to her father. “I miss my REAL daddy”. These words must cut the father. To think that your daughter never really thought of you as her father. He realizes that it’s not truly her fault. Having bonded with her real father for so long and then to be taken away is kind of hard on a child. And not just once, she had been taken from many homes. How could it be her fault?
“Daddy?” She asks quietly when he comes into her room to say good night. “What?” he replies. “I love you.” She whispers just as quietly. “I love you too, Naomi.” Is his response.


Several years later they are arguing, in an attempt to a low blow, she yells, “I miss my REAL dad! HE would never stand here yelling at me!” He pauses for a moment, seemingly unfazed by her words. She knows however that she has hit a nerve. The argument ends with a few more exchanged words, in the form of screaming, and a well deserved punishment for Naomi.

Several days later, after having gone to see her biological mother, her father finds her in a ball on the kitchen floor. He proceeds with typical parental question “Are you hurt?”. She responds that, “No, I’m not hurt. I just miss my birth mother Kimberly.” He hugs her and tells her it’s okay. He understands what it’s like to miss a loved one. She regrets ever having thought of him as a fake father.

Through the years they encounter more and more arguments but she does not use the words “I wish my REAL father was here!”. She knows that it is the worst thing to say. It cuts too deeply, and leaves pink ribbon scars that never heal. One night, as the family sits down to dinner she is glum. When they asked her what was wrong she told them that she missed her birth father. As the tears came she went and sat in her dads lap. That was one if her first true moments of bonding and being herself with her adopted dad.

As she got older, she realized that when he said he understood how she felt, he wasn’t just saying it to make her feel better. He truly understood. Although some nights after a particularly brutal argument, she would sit in her room and cry and tell herself that he wasn't her real father. She would always regret having thought it. It made her feel like traitor to her adopted dad.

One thing that she had always said to him since she was little was, “I love you daddy.”
She had never regretted saying that, because it had always been true. She really did love him as her real father. In fact she could hardly remember her biological father. He was a very distant memory. It made thinking of her adopted dad, as her real father, that much easier.

That night as her father came to say good night, she hugged him and said, “I love you Daddy.”
His reply was as simple as hers but held big meaning to her, “I love you too Naomi.”