I’ve been try­ing to write a let­ter to her mother. Something like this:

I was going to stop by on my last trip to Toronto, but part of me real­ized it may have made things com­pli­cated, since it’d be the first time since we stopped talk­ing to each other. Not that I was scared you would take a side, but because I didn’t want you to think I was forc­ing that deci­sion on you.

All I want to say is that I miss all of you ter­ri­bly, she was spe­cial, and it’s a pity things didn’t work out. But it was much beyond our con­trol. I don’t know if either of us will ever grow out of these dif­fer­ences that hold us back.

The last time I came to visit, it was almost 2pm on a Tuesday and you were both at work. I scratched a note on the back of a notepad to let you know I stopped by, and she told me you liked me so much, you stuck it on your fridge. That always meant a lot.

Thanks for everything.

But all of it comes out sound­ing defen­sive. I wish I could explain how I’m not angry but sad, which is a tes­ta­ment to how great they were. I can’t fig­ure out how to put the ball in their court, to let them know that if they’re okay with it, and she’s okay with it, we can still be friends. I really don’t know how appro­pri­ate that would be anyway.

Sometimes, the hard­est part of giv­ing up the girls is giv­ing up their par­ents too.