She feeds me almonds

My daughter grabs two handfuls of almonds from the pantry and comes to give them to me on the couch. As she crawls up to me and plops herself on my lap, I let myself feel the pleasant weight of her almost-2-year-old body.

She tilts her head around and looks at me with our noses almost touching. “Eat—Dad.” She feeds me a single almond.

There is nowhere she is but here.

After munching the almond, I take another from what I thought was a shared pile.

“No—Dad.”

I stop chewing. “Are these not ours?”

“Pit—Out.” (Spit it out)

It’s confirmed: that’s her pile.

A few days later, I recall the day she was born. That same day, I received news that I had lost something dear to me. And yet, sad as that was, I was also holding a new little life in my arms. Two disparate realities splitting my attention like a log round hewn by a maul.

Somehow, the way she feeds me with almonds today feels like a mending of those split pieces. A putting back together again. An unrelated kindness that reaches farther back than the giver intended.