A Conversation with my Daughter in Heaven

Dad: Hi Sweetie, I have missed you.  Sorry I left you alone on earth for so many years, I was hoping I could beat the odds and outlive you so I could keep an eye on you and lend a hand as best I could.

Daughter: Hi Dad, it's great to see you again too, I have missed you too.

Dad: Its so nice to hear your true voice again, amazing how I never got used to your 'T' voice. Your original voice is immediately so familiar and dear to me, I wasn't sure I would remember it so well.  I guess in heaven we all revert to our true selves.  Isn't it nice how thanks to the magic of heaven we all understand the world and our loved ones so completely now.

Daughter: Yes, I understand now….I'm sorry Dad.

Dad: For what?

Daughter: For putting you through all that worry over that crazy gender stuff.

Dad:  No need to apologize Sweetie, you were doing your best under crazy circumstances.  It is I who should apologize.

Daughter:  For what?

Dad: For not somehow seeing it coming and finding a way to protect you better.

Daughter: No need to apologize Dad, you were doing your best under crazy circumstances.

Dad: Thanks, it sure was crazy stuff.  Just yesterday I was talking to God and he told me I should forgive all those adults who enabled the madness.  That's going to be very difficult for me.

Daughter: Now that we are in heaven and we understand everything, I guess I need to concede that all that Gender research you sent me was spot on, I guess I should have read it 60 years ago before I made those big decisions, but you just couldn't talk sense to me back then.

Dad: It was such a relief for me when you came to your senses, but it could have been worse.  I have always been one to question conventional 'wisdom' , on the topic of gender, perhaps ignorance would have been bliss?  Tempting to think so but, can you imagine the pain for those parent's who were themselves deluded that now see the light too late.  To know you actively participated in the harming of your own child, I can't even imagine, no wonder so few of them come out of the darkness to eventually see the light.  Self preservation instincts can't allow them to face it.

Daughter: I always thought you had pulled back and become subdued in my presence because you disapproved of my choices?  Now I see how awkward and painful it was for you, the cloud over you grew when I spoke in that strangers voice, and it grew bigger when others talked about their kids getting married and having grand children. 

I see now that you have a brain that just couldn’t detach or pretend, and thus everyday, every conversation hearing that 'T' voice, every glimpse of my whiskers was a harsh reminder of how lost I was and how powerless you felt.

Dad: It is certainly true that my response to the question 'how is your daughter doing' became very brief….'fine' I would say, 'steady as she goes' perhaps, which of course was a lie.  

Daughter: After all the research, did you every figure out why they did it?  Why did they groom a generation of kids to believe such nonsense. We were so confused. Aren't the grownups supposed to be the smart ones?  Supposed to protect, educate and guide us, not confuse and abuse us? 

Dad: You have every right to be angry Sweetie.

Daughter: I sometimes think back to how happy and confident I was pre-middle school, and how hard it was for me to fit in and make friends in middle school, high school and college.  I think that made me susceptible to the allure and popularity of the Trans community.  Isn't it strange how that social dynamic mostly disappears when you enter the work force a couple short years later.

Dad: Yes, the clustering of kids by age in school certainly creates a Lord of the Flies dynamic that is unnatural and doesn't exist once you leave school.  If kids could think ahead peer pressure wouldn't have such a grip on them, but then their brains are still developing. In part I blame the clash of modern society with our DNA that creates that 'Lord of the Flies' environment. Human nature evolved over thousands of years to thrive in more of a balanced community setting that we just don't have in most of modern society. 

Dad:  Now that you can read my mind, anything in particular surprise you?

Daughter: One thing that I didn’t appreciate is how hard it would be on you when I changed my name.

Dad: According to Shakespeare it shouldn't matter.  “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”  It's a different context of course but as it relates to gender motivated name changes he is perhaps at most only half right.  You're still you, you're still a Rose!  I think it was harder on your mother because I always had my nickname for you, so that affection you feel inside when you refer to your child by your favorite name was not lost to me, but it was to your mother.

Daughter:  I didn’t realize. 'What is in a name'! Now I see that in this context, years of fond memories of affection and shared experiences.

Dad: You certainly were lost for awhile there, but thankfully in time you came to see yourself as I did, a wonderful person just as you are.

Daughter: I think it's time you forgive yourself Dad.  You did your best under difficult circumstances, it wasn't your fault. You are a great Dad!

Dad: I could say the same to you. You need to forgive yourself, you did your best under difficult circumstances, it wasn't your fault either.  You are a wonderful Daughter!  Forgiving you is easy, forgiving myself is harder, but forgiving the enablers as God challenged me to do feels impossible.  I am still dumbfounded by the gullibility, the stupidity, it’s a wonder humans' survived at all.

Daughter:  Maybe Ender can help us.

Dad: You mean Ender from the book Ender's Game?  I loved that book, and loved reading it to you when you were little!

Daughter: Exactly.  Do you remember the quote from the book?  “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. "

Dad: Yes, I see what you mean, now that I understand them, fully, I can forgive them but, you left off the last line of the quote….."…And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”  It's not vengeance for Ender, it's survival of the human race that is at stake.  I can forgive the stupid and the gullible, but for those who's job it is to think critically about what to teach our children, and how prescribe medical treatment, there needs to be accountability so we learn to protect the next generation better.

Daughter: Fair enough.  Now let’s sing like we used to, I can do the high harmony again now that I have my voice back.

Dad: That would be wonderful sweetie, let's sing.

ROGDFather