My 10 year old will sometimes grab my hand as if she is going to kiss it; but instead lifts my fingers to meet her gaze, and thumbs my engagement ring.  “This one is mine, right mommy?”  she asks.  She already knows it is.  Several years ago when she started asking me why I always wore it, I told her the story of her father, his Christmas Day proposal, and how eventually, when she is much older, the ring will be hers.

It’s the same for my 7 year old.  She knows she will get my wedding band, which is not nearly as impressive, but still sparkles nonetheless.  In the back of my mind I’d always said I’d buy something else, maybe something sapphire, something conflict-free, something beautiful to accompany that band.  Because I want their gifts to be equal.  I want them to believe I tried to make things equal.  I don’t want to play favorites or give them any reason to think I played favorites.  I want them both to have their fair share, their halfsies.  I cut the pizza equally.  I pour the same amount of juice.  Nobody shall have more. Or less.

I often worry about this sense of fairness and equality.    Can they be of different minds and different personalities and can I look at them both with the same eyes, noting their differences, yet loving the equally?  Can this be a thing?  No matter what I do, what I leave them, how I live with them and show them the world, show them love, will they think of me as loving them equally?

Does Fiona’s desire to get 100% on her spelling tests by asking me to quiz her each morning over cereal equal Aubrey’s YouTube cartwheel tutorials which she watched and practiced until attaining perfection?

Does Fiona’s always remembering to pick out a snack for  her absent sister to enjoy later, equal Aubrey’s exclamation after already leaving the store, that she should have picked something out for her sister and feels badly about forgetting?

Does Aubrey’s ability to not be everybody’s friend, and to not care about being everybody’s friend, equal Fiona’s happy-go-lucky, we all need to get along vibe?  Can they both be equally happy and engaged in their completely different ways of existing?  Will I encourage Aubrey to “come out of her shell” and try to convince Fiona that not everybody is going to want to be her friend and that’s ok?  Can I just let them be their own people?

These are my girls.  These are my worries.  Will I leave them enough?  Will I leave for them equally?  Will they be happy?  Will they see the world?  Will they find love?  Will they be empathetic and kind?  Will they both be equally as  happy and in love and empathetic and kind?

The queen of the elves, the white-shouldered beauty.