This morning...

…. as the bus crossed the floating bridge over Lake Washington, I was treated to one of the great sights of nature. The Mountain was out, silhouetted by a stunning array of high clouds lit from below by the red-amber prologue to sunrise. It seemed not merely to announce the day but rather to proclaim it.

I know this probably seems a tad hyperbolic but I promise you, it was a truly peak peek and turned my morning around. It made me think of beginnings rather than endings. And I needed that.

You see, from the time I woke up this morning, well before the alarm announced it was time, I have been worrying about today. More specifically, I worry about you and what you might do today.

We’ve never met. I don’t even know your name. My daughter is very private about some things and I have not been invited to explore too closely my curiosity about the meeting with you she has planned for today. I know only that you will meet with the objective of helping her to deal with the comet trail of emotions she’s been dealing with these past months.

And years, if we’re going to be honest.

I worry about you because I can’t know how good you are at what you do, how sensitively you will receive the information she will pour out for you, how welcome you will help her feel or how trustworthy you will prove to be.

She badly needs someone who is neither family nor friend, who has no history with her but who will seek to understand her story. She so profoundly needs a neutral corner from which to prepare for her next round of battle with demons she is only now beginning to understand.

Please don’t see her as broken. She has been beaten – both literally and figuratively – and bloodied, but don’t you dare see her as broken. The moment you see her as ‘lost’ you will disqualify yourself for the task.

She has been waylaid but never lost. Even from the bottom she was always looking up. She reached out for this help but she must not be smothered. She is a strong person, a good person, a superlatively intelligent person. You are there to help her find perspective, not to fashion her plan.

The utterly terrifying part of all of this is that of trust. She has to place trust in a stranger and as her father and friend, I have to place trust in both of you. I do trust my daughter because she has proven herself trustworthy at the most difficult of times.

You are the wild card, the uneasy unknown.

Please, if you do nothing else today, please, please just listen.

Let her tell you. Because somewhere beneath the hurt and beyond the doubt, she knows.