Thank You Deena
Deena, you saw something special in me, in your precious perfect daughters with me together, and especially in Sarah with me.
You gave me something ("someone", a God-Daughter) that nobody else did. And with that you gave me so many 100% joyous, pure moments and memories to last a lifetime. Moments I wish I could relive and moments that were so great that if that is what Heaven is, I wish for a million more days like those in Heaven someday.
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I always wanted a daughter (nobody seems to understand this) but God never granted me a daughter. I even wanted to adopt a daughter from China, as my wife is Hong Kong Chinese and there are so many unwanted girls to adopt there and one would fill my heart and fit in well with us. But it takes two in a marriage to adopt so I never had one.
Enter 2016, and enter Deena.
You had three girls in my new school where I was Coach Murphy, running a PE/Flex class all by myself .
There were the twin 3rd graders, Kenzie and Sarah, age 8, and the kindergarten 5-year old Sama. Also, still at home with you was 3-year old Hana.
Before I even had their names memorized, they showered me with daily hugs and affection, with you Deena right there beside them every day after school and often staying in my classroom with the girls practicing their Cup Stacking.
You once asked if I was "sent by God" for them. Little did I know at the time that, in truth, God sent you and them into my life at that time. I remember you telling me after the day they took me to the Texas State Fair, that it was their best day of their life. I've lived a lot more days and years than they have and have been to Hawaii and many other places, and that day was also one of my perfect days of my life. Thank Madhu for capturing some great photos of them with me that day.
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Our relationship grew into a second-family for me and all of you, and from my perspective, I did it and I always felt disapproval from certain people like the assistant principal, who shot suspicious death-daggars at me when the girls would get into my Sienna after school for me to take them to go and meet you and Hana at DQ or wherever we went.
I felt guilty looks from other office people and some of my co-specials teachers/coaches. I was even told not to let the kids give me so many hugs. Imagine that weighing down on me every day at that school from those "adults".
Deena, you knew what I faced and you did worry for me, you she said "who cares what people think!"
YOU were so right (because you knew it all was very special, and one-in-a-trillion rare), and I did my best.
But I always felt that scrutiny, looks of suspicion from some bad people at that school.
And while my own family was somewhat supportive, my wife was (and is) not not really interested in anything because she had no emotional attachment to the girls, nor did she ever have any desire for girls of her own, unlike me.
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While God never granted me my own daughter(s), Deena, you (kind of) did! And to me, these girls were perfect and they loved me. Deena once said of "Sarah, it's almost as if she chooses her own father."
And if I ever did have a daughter of my own, there's nobody on God's planet who I could love anymore than Sarah.
Kenzie, Sama, and Hana too. But for some reason only you, Deena knew why, Sarah had an extra special love for me. I felt that too for her, but they each own my heart 100% so there are no "favorites" for me, even though she was extra special so much so that my first year there, Sarah finally got accepted into a special private school, but she chose to stay at my school because of me.
You and Madhu told her that she'd "still be able to see me out of school", but she didn't want to leave me.
Just writing that here and remembering that makes me cry again right now and typing through blurry watery eyes.
And it reminds me of that day in 2017 when that happened when you first told me about it in a text I read when I got home from school. You told me that she had been accepted into that prestigious school, and she, they had to make a decision but that she would probably go as it is a very prestigious international school.
I, for some reason, thought it would be at the end of that school year, but later in that day at home Deena your text said it would be effective immediately. I thought my time with Sarah at my school was over just like that. And I remember laying in bed that night not being able to fall asleep with tears falling down my cheek and face onto my pillow, soaking it.
The next day you told me Sarah made the decision she "couldn't leave the school because of me", even though she didn't like the school otherwise. What an absolute gift for my heart.
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Fast forward to November of 2021 and Deena has now been taken away from her husband and daughters and three-year old son Adam.
And while (all thanks to Deena) we all shared so many great times together from their soccer games to State Fairs, football games, indoor Sky Diving, Christmas festivities, their 9th-Birthday party, swimming, Face-timing me from all over town, when I was in Minnesota for a Gophers football game, from when they were in Egypt, etc.
I still wasted too many others by not being there for her when she called for help and I was in Philadelphia for a football game of two teams I was not even a fan of, but with my best friends.
And after that, because of my poor communication, I never again was really there for her. And I wasted three years and I let her down. And I ruined what was the greatest gift anyone could ever give me. We were like a match made my God as brother and sister and adorable precious nieces or God-Daughters, Grand-Daughters. She said so. She was right.
I cannot get those precious years back.
I can't apologize to Deena. I hope she is in Heaven and I hope she can see me trying to be a part of their lives like before. I know I will make to Heaven and if I were to go now, the first thing I would do is find Deena and apologize. And cry more.
She said, in an e-mail (that I still have) how it is important to be in Sarah's life in the future. Actually, a few times.
If I could turn back time, I would go back to that day in October of 2018 in Philadelphia when she called me while I was at a football game. And I would plead with her to move her appointment back one day or one week for when I was back and could take the girls overnight and to school the next day. Or I wish I wouldn't have gone to that football game.
But I cannot turn back time. And I cannot get those lost days, weeks, months, years back. And that makes me cry more again, now, typing this.
All I try to do is pray that she can see me now, and see me giving all that I possibly can to her kids, and to help Madhu, her husband, carry on raising them all by himself. I want to make up for lost time. I want her to be back.
Sarah and Kenzie are now 13, and anyone who has had teenagers knows that they are much different through those years.
I still love Kenzie so much. She still hugged me all thru her 5th grade year as she knew I loved her.
No matter what (even if the hugs don't come like before, sadly), the most important thing is for them to know 100% that I still & always will love them & will always be there for them as long as I live. If & when they want/need.
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Moments & Memories
