Advice to Nereida

You can not save the ocean from drowning, he told me, because it is always drowning. Irrevocably. It's something you can't change, nor do you try to. He explained that there are some things you don't try to change about yourself, but there are other things you rip from the base of your spine. You place love in between vertebrae because a good foundation is everything and nothing is stronger than the love for your daughter. You take out small-mindedness and remember that every opportunity is like a flower, dormant until the sunshine entices it open.

There is so much of you in her, he says: her smile when she brings you wildflowers, her hair when it's tangled from a sea breeze, and most of all when she presses her head against you and whispers 'Mommy, I love you." She will have your passion for knowledge and your taste for all things sweet. She will learn that there is such a thing as too much and you will be there when her heart breaks for the umpteenth time.

Later, he would say that I need to take time to memorize my name. Take time to recall the way it rolls along my tongue, curls against the back of my throat. Remember the way it sounds when my favorite person utters it, happiness exuding from each letter, because that is when it sounds best. Reflect on yourself, how you became you and how to make your daughter an even better being. Smiling, he told me, you named her after yourself for a reason, Nereida.

Above all, he said, the sea does not soften for anyone, but you must.