I won’t go into the sad details too much, but at 39, I had given up on finding love. I own my own business and house. Four years ago, a woman who was 30 moved into an apartment across the street. She was a recovering drug addict and basically had lots of s** to obtain these drugs for free. I don’t know what made me fall in love with her. She was a wonderful woman, despite her past. She made me laugh, she made me feel alive. I took her to the beach (she never went before because her parents were poor). She showed me what true love was. We made love, we cuddled all the time, we loved to cook together. After a year, I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I had forgiven her for her past (she told me she had slept with over 60 men). However, she never cheated on me, and I do believe that. We made each other happy. She thought no man could ever love her the way I did. Then I asked her to marry me. We had a small wedding, which she preferred. I took her to Paris for our honeymoon.
Then after 3 years, it all came crashing down. The love of my life had incurable cervical cancer. She was dying. How could God let this happen to me? We got in a fight and I blamed her for her own cancer based on her past. That was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I did it out of anger- I loved her so much I was not ready to say goodbye. But as always, she had a surprise of her own- she told me she was 3 months pregnant with our baby. She made it a priority to live past the 6 months doctors gave her so she could give me the ultimate gift of our love.

Today, that little girl is 8 months old. Her mom passed away when she was two months old. We had time to get a family portrait and take a quick trip to the beach where we made a lot of mother-daughter memories. They wore the same bathing suit!

But what melted my heart today was I was sitting on the floor with my little sweetie playing peek-a-boo and out of the sudden, she crawled over to me, kissed my nose and said, “Love da-da!” And she giggled. I cried tears of joy.

While my love story may not have been traditional, it was perfect to me. And I know I will be the best dad a daughter has ever had.

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