The Things Left Unsaid

Johnathan Fred Anderson: The Father

My little girl is gone, she dead. My daughter is dead and I'm sitting here losing my mind. I still hear her laugh at the dinner table, her frustrated sighs from her room; as if she were doing homework. I can still picture her sitting on the couch reading a book.

I remember her dancing around the kitchen whenever she cooked, or her sitting on Tyler when he sat in her seat; he never sits there anymore. I remember her and her friends hanging aroung the backyard; they havent been back since the funeral, not even Jane. I remember her and Paige making forts and hiding snacks behind the couches for when they slept over.

She'll never fall in love. She'll never have kids, never feel the joy of watching them grow. I'll never get to see her grow anymore. She'll never run into my arms.

The last time I saw her I was telling her I was going out of town the next day and that she was gonna have to help her mom out. I said it as if she ever let her mom go unhelped, as if she didnt act like a third parent.

If I could just have one more day with her I'd tell her how much of a help she was. I'd tell her how beautiful she was, just like her mom. I would tell her how smart she was, and how loved she was.

I wish I could have been a better father. Fathers are suposed to protect their little girls, fight for them, and my little girl was fighting alone. My daughter was fighting and I wasn't even at the match. My baby was in a battle and I had no clue there was even a war.

I could have been a better father, and I should have. But I don't know what's worse; that I could have done better and didn't or if I couldn't do better and didn't try.

I want to storm into her school and demand that those girls get worse than a few weeks of suspension. I want to press charges. I want them to be charged as adults with murder. But that won't bring her back. Them in jail won't change what they did and then there would be two little girls in jail.

I also want to ask them why. But I don't think I could keep my cool long enough to listen to their reasons. But I hope they feel guilt, and shame, and disgust with what they did.

I just want my baby girl back.