I had a dream, when I was a young teen, about being the single parent of a daughter (mother died in child birth). I remember the 18 years of raising that child better than most of my own childhood memories: taking her home from the hospital, first steps, signing up for elementary school, taking her to school every day, watching my child grow up. Getting into disagreements, teaching to bike, the panic of the first day of her period (she tried to hide it because she thought she’d be in trouble). High school, school clubs, prom, college applications. We got into a disagreement on her 18th, and she told me I was a terrible paren, that I’d failed even being friends with her, which was the opposite of how I thought it was going. She appeared in the front door with a suitcase, and walked out stating she’d never see me again, and the dream ended. To this day it still shakes me, but not as hard as it did when I woke up that day, broken for being a bad parent that I didn’t see.