My Daughter would sing to herself or hum whenever she would walk around and play. She was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life. She looked just like her mother, with beautiful blue eyes, pale skin, and the most beautiful golden blonde hair you could ever wish to lay your eyes on. She was everything to me, she was who I looked forward to seeing every day after work. I’m sorry I keep using the term beautiful so much but that’s what she was to me.
I sadly lost her in early October. It has taken me some time to try to be able to write this down, my therapist said if I was able to put it into words everything that happened, I might find some comfort in finding a better life or better mental health after her passing.
Before I can even go into the events that led to my daughter’s passing, I think I should let you know the story of me and my little Birdie.
I didn’t even know I had a daughter, a single one-night stand gave to me a gift I could never be more grateful for. I knew her mother throughout high school, we talked occasionally but never found a common ground of liking the same things. We were just people on opposite paths, maybe in another timeline or another world we are together taking care of our beautiful little bird.
When I was made aware that I had a daughter, it had thrown my life for a loop. I was midway through med school racking up student loans. I had to leave school once I laid my eyes on little Birdie, she was beautiful. There was no doubt in my mind that she was mine. She was given to me by her mother’s parents. They informed me of her mother’s passing, also that she ended up becoming pregnant and kept the baby, and chose not to tell me about it.
During the birth of Birdie, her mother ended up passing away due to complications. Her parents didn’t want to go into specifics when telling me about her passing but explained that they couldn’t take care of Birdie.
They offered to help me pay some of my student loan debts knowing that I would be forced to quit school to take care of her. I denied their proposals, left school, and got a place with Birdie. Med school was stressful, so in a way, I was happy to be out of it. I took up an apprenticeship and studied under one of my high school friends. He is a mechanic and taught me everything he knew.
During this time I tried to do everything for Birdie.
We would go to the park immediately when I would get home. She would run around and play with the other kids. She was a kind-hearted soul, if she thought the other kids were being mean to one another she would try to break it up. She was 5 at this time, and even though some of the other kids would pick on her she never cared. She always told me.
“Daddy, It’s okay they are happy”
She was a selfless soul for someone so young. She never begged or cried for things to be catered to her like most kids.
I struggled with money, being forced to skip Christmases. I tried to do everything I could for Birdie. Even with the student loan debt and the overly high rent everywhere we stayed. We needed a break, someplace to be able to settle down.
That was when I found it.
There was a small 2-bedroom house in upstate new york, along the Hudson river. It was being built but was abandoned by the people who were working on it. Everything was there though, all the wiring, the insulation was up, and it seemed like a great deal. It was just practically an empty shell. The only really fixed-up rooms were the 2 bedrooms. Everything else we would have to figure out on our own.
That was okay with me, I just wanted to finally settle down and let my daughter experience a normal childhood. I wanted her to be able to make friends, have them come over, for us to be able to invite them over for birthday parties, and I can’t do that anymore.
I would have done anything for her, to be able to swing her around in my arms lifting her up to the sky. Even now I can still hear her laughs echoing throughout this house.
It’s getting worst.
When we finally packed everything up. I loaded everything into my minivan and we drove out to the Hudson.
We did some sightseeing. Looked at the colleges, and ate at one of the cooking schools dining halls that were open to the public. Little giggles. I will always remember them, she thought it was so funny that one of the campus dining areas was called “The Egg”.
I talked to some people and we all tried to show her how to play pool, I had to help her guide the pole. She had one of the best times of her life, I even made a couple of friends that night.
When we drove away from the college it took us a short amount of time to arrive to our new house. It’s on the side of a hill on a windy road. When we unpacked all of our stuff, I had to install new locks on the doors, windows, and close up the vents. Birdie’s bedroom walls were a blueish-white color, with some gray splotches scattered on them.
I had decided to make it feel more at home, we put up pictures of our old homes, pictures from park walks, and we even put on hand prints on the wall in paint. Her hand print so small compared to mine.
When we had finally settled all our stuff in, Birdie started school. I took so many pictures of her first day and put them all over her walls. She was so adorable when leaving I had to practically put her on the bus myself because she would not let go of my arm.
After a couple of weeks, she started making plenty of friends, and my work had been going well. Birdie started acting strange though.
Throughout the week she had been talking to herself in her room with no one in there. I went to the doctors to make sure she was okay but they explained to me that Birdie has an overly working imagination for someone her age and there would be nothing to worry about.
She had started to become more distant toward me which was completely out of Birdie’s character. She had always hung out with me. Never more than 10 feet away at all times when we were home. What had me incredibly nervous is that she would be talking in her room, laughing and giggling. Having full-length conversations with someone that just wasn’t actually there. This started to worry me because I have never heard of a child around her age with that active of an imagination.
I went and asked for second opinions and doctors just told me that she is young and she will grow out of it and that this is all temporary. I started to think about it over the next couple of days. Birdie never really had a mother or any friends for most of her life. It was just me and her together in a world that was built to strike us down. I decided that I needed to try to understand my daughter more. I decided that me and her should have a little chat.
We both sat down on the floor and had a little chat.
“Hey Birdie, you know I love you very much right?”
Birdie “ Yes, and i love you daddy”
“You know I am always here to talk to you, and play whenever I am around right?”
Birdie “ I know daddy”
“Birdie would be able to tell me about the friend you have been speaking to in your bedroom”
Birdie “ Are you talking about Mr. Echo daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart”
Birdie “He’s one of my best friends, he is timid so he doesn’t tend to leave the vents. He is not much of a talker why would yo–”
“What do you mean in the vents Birdie?”
Birdie “ The vent in my room dad, he has been in there since we’ve gotten here”
“You are sure that there is someone in there?”
Birdie “ Yes dad he’s in there right now, I was just talking to him before we came to talk”
There was something I didn’t notice during our conversation, a slight sound of shuffling. It came directly behind where Birdie was sitting. I quietly picked her up and proceeded to leave the house. When we made it outside, I called a couple of the friends I made from the college and they came over to help me search the vents. Nothing ended up coming up, besides a couple of rats and little bones scattered throughout the deeper part of the vents.
I hadn’t gotten over the situation, but everyone else all decided to chalk up the situation to Birdie’s wild imagination. Ever since that day my friends from the college started playing with Birdie, and coming over to watch her.
With them coming over and treating her like a younger sister the conversations with Mr.Echo seemed to have slowed down until she just stopped talking to him completely. I checked the vents frequently whenever I heard a sound. There would always be nothing though.
Life had seemed to completely turn to normalcy, this normalcy lasted a couple of months until October 24th. Me and Birdie had just gotten done watching a movie with my friends/ her newfound brothers. They had left and I tucked Birdie into bed and used the bathroom.
While I was in the bathroom, I could hear walking down the hallway coming closer to my bathroom door.
“knock, knock, knock.”
I told Birdie, that I was in there and ill be out shortly, and I also told her that she needed to go back to bed.
She kept asking me to go outside and play with her. Her knocking persisted until I got fed up with it and let my short temper out. I told her to go to bed more sternly than I should of.
I could hear her say, in a strangely quiet tone “catch catch me”. The sound of little feet running away from the door and the backdoor of the house opening and closing caused me to get out of the bathroom and chase after her.
I couldn’t find her anywhere, nowhere. I checked the play set I had bought her, I checked under the porch of the house to see if she was hiding, and I even checked the treeline to see if she was hiding. I gave up and went to go into the house to see if I could call my friends and the police to see if they could help me find her.
When I looked at the backdoor of the house a figure was standing in the doorway. I couldn’t make out the detail of whoever it was, all I could tell was just that they were tall and what appeared to be a slightly disfigured person with arms longer than they should be, and legs that looked to be too skinny to be keeping it up straight.
They closed the backdoor and locked it, I could see Birdie staring at me through her bedroom window. Her golden hair was neatly put into a bun I had put it in before bed, she was wearing her hello kitty pajamas, and she was just smiling at me. There was no fear on her face, just same old happy Birdie. The person I cherished more than anything in my entire life.
I got to the door and was just started banging on it. I managed to break the lock and when I ran through the house and made it into her bedroom. The vent in her room was completely open and the window of her room was wide open. I could just see the memories going through my head of me and birdie spending time with each other something in my just knew that, the smile she gave me would be the last one I would ever see of hers again.
I called the police and they couldn’t find anything, they said they couldn’t find any tracks leading into the woods either. My friends came over and tried to help search the woods for Birdie but nothing had come up. It was almost as if she was spirited away, not a trace of where she could have gone had been found.
When I told a detective about what happened he told me I must be going through some trauma from the incident and that my brain is trying to fill in the gaps, of what was standing in my doorway. I would have started to believe him until I could hear my daughter’s giggles echoing through my house at night. There would be nothing in the house though, not a trace of my daughter. I had friends stay over but when they were there nothing would happen. Once they left I swear once I entered a room and closed the door behind me. I could hear her walking around the house still.
I got on my knees ugly crying with my hands against the floor and begged through tears running down my face.
“Please Birdie, Please just come back to me Daddy misses you so much please god”
That is when I started to hear her singing and humming. I started to go to therapy because of this and my therapist told me I’m experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations. He put me on an antipsychotic, but nothing worked. Out of the corner of my eyes, I can still see her while typing this. Her golden blond hair and her beautiful little smile. The same smile she gave me the last day I saw her.
I’ve even seen wet footprints today after a long day of rain. They started from the backdoor of my house to my room. I don’t know if what I’m seeing is real but I just want my little Birdie.
I want to hold her and swing her around like when we were at the parks. I want to never miss a Christmas with her ever again. I promise my little Birdie, if you could just sing to me one more time and let Daddy find you, I promise ill never let you go again. I want to see you start middle school, high school, I want to help you drive your first car, get your license, go to college, fall in love, and let me walk you down the aisle on your wedding day.
Please, just, please.
Sing To Me My Little Birdie, let Daddy find you.
I love you…