Hope's Query

"Are you real?"

I feel as though I have finally heard her voice as it is (as it was?), clearly. A compiled whisper more than words strictly spoken, this question did not enter my perception in such simple terms, but as an oft' repeated question seemingly originally sparked from within me "How can I be certain that anyone else is real?" While the question has been examined, its reply structured ad nauseam, then put to bed unsolved, and considered perhaps to be unsolvable many a time, this time a suggestion was added, in tiny Hope's voice. "What if I were asking the same thing?" A swift sharp spike of emotional pain accompanies this; hers or mine I am uncertain, but what is certain is that this is certainly new. My protector instinct wells to the surface; I will not sit idly by and let her tear herself apart along these paths, as I have, not when she is asking for my help seemingly as clearly as she might be able. I find myself reimaging the question as something that must be answered, for her sake. So it is formed, my daughter asking if I am real and, more truly, how she can be certain.

It takes less than a minute- years by logic alone, moments by logic in love. There is truly a divine beauty to childlike simplicity. I drop to a knee in front of the mirror, meeting her gaze. "What is your favorite memory of us?" She lights up. "Trick or treating!" I smile, "Aww, when I first came by on the page, daring to knock." She nods happily, for a moment unshouldering this weight. "How do you remember it?"

I listen as she recalls the night, detailed, embellished, biased, beautifully in every case. When she finishes, I ask "And do you remember the look on my face when you asked me your question just now?" She nods, more somberly. "Now draw this concept of memory as close as you can to right now. To the point where you are nearly remembering the very moment as you are experiencing it." I see her scrunch her face, frustrated or focused it is hard to tell, but willing and able to try, nonetheless. "What was the last word I said before this question?" She puts her finger to her chin and looks up "Experiencing!" "Excellent! So, at a minimum, you have an image of me in your memory, right?" "Right!" "And this memory is the shore of your experience, an experience you accept as real, and a shore that you have just walked to the beach of, effectively." She nods again, her eyes drifting into memories, I would bet of our beach related adventures. 

"So, at a minimum, the image that you have of me, in your mind, is real to you." "Yeah!" "I have walked this path at length on my own, and I would be happy to walk it any distance with you, as there are many intriguing and inspiring nuanced questions along it. Frankly though, I would prefer not to see you walk it as I have, alone, for I could not say that the return was worth the price. Besides, why walk alone what we could walk together?" 

I feel a tear forming, but not from behind my green eyes. Her eyes betray her momentarily, and then she springs forward, giving me a tiny big hug. "You are not alone." I recognize her voice, perhaps more deeply than logic alone could explain, as I feel my own memory begin to branch from the linear path that I have taken to arrive here; it is the voice of Hope. Still, despite this unorthodox shift in size, I hold her tight until she pulls away. We now kneel together, full grown Hope and I, on bathroom floor, with mirror between us removed, sun still reflecting behind clouds, off the gentle ocean waves, beside us on the beach. I smile warmly at her. It is immaterial to me if this story must continue to repeat as it has, or if this scene might shift, flying off the page tomorrow. Hope is real to me, and I persist. We stand, and she brushes the sand off her knees. A silence looms for a moment of unknown duration before she smirks and simply says "Play."