Lying awake in the dead of night, Auckland dad Patrick O’Malley stared at the ceiling. The thoughts inside his head simply wouldn’t go away and in the end, he gave in. Sitting at his computer, he began to type.
By 2am, his face stained with tears, his letter was done. It began, “29,735 hours. 1238 days. 177 weeks. 88 fortnights. 40 months. Three years. This is how long I have loved you …”
The person it was meant for was sleeping peacefully in the room next door. If he listened hard, he could hear the soft rise and fall of her breath, and the occasional rustle as she turned over in her sleep – his darling daughter Lola Rose.
As surprised as Patrick was by the words that sprung from him that night, it was nothing compared to his shock when, a few days later, his letter went viral, flying around the internet from Ireland to Singapore.
The millions of people who saw it were touched by the intensity of the Kiwi dad’s love for his daughter. But it was more than that. In his letter, Patrick told Lola how, as a newborn, he had struggled to connect with her.
“Some parents instantly fall in love and others take some time for that flame to alight. Is that an awful thing to say?” he wrote. “When did I fall in love with you? From the moment I first met you. I just didn’t know it yet.” It turned out Patrick had put into words what many new parents the world over have experienced.
Parenting shock After marrying in 2012, high- school sweethearts Patrick, 30, and Lisa, 31, were both keen to start a family. And just three months later, his wife was pregnant. At their 20-week scan, the couple decided not to learn the sex of their baby, asking for the information to be placed in an envelope.
“It sat on our fridge for four weeks,” laughs Patrick, “until one night when we were too tempted.” They were thrilled to discover their baby was a girl.
After a gruelling 36-hour labour, Lisa gave birth to Lola Rose on January 29, 2013. Patrick was surprised when he didn’t experience an instant flood of emotion, “but I figured I was just exhausted”.
As the days passed without feeling a connection to his little girl, however, he began to worry. “It was an internal agony. I spent many a night thinking that something was wrong with me,” he recalls.
A few weeks later, Patrick finally worked up the courage to share his feelings – or lack of them – with Lisa.
“I was quite upset for him because he had been so looking forward to being a dad,” Lisa tells Woman’s Day. “I knew how much I was in love with our daughter and for him to not feel that straight away,
I knew it hurt him a lot.”
The couple immediately stepped up the amount of one-on-one time Patrick spent with Lola.
The moment he arrived home from work, Lola was placed in Patrick’s arms. He increased his involvement with everything from changing nappies and getting the wee girl dressed, to giving her baths and reading her stories.
Patrick can’t pinpoint when the bond with his daughter began to grow. It helped, he says, when Lola became old enough to communicate, kicking her legs when she saw him and blowing raspberries.
But just how deeply he had fallen in love was driven home when, at around eight months old, Lola fell out of her cot.
“She was gasping for air and vomiting,” recalls Patrick. “We rushed her to the hospital and thankfully nothing was wrong.
But that was one of the big realisations for me about how far our relationship had come. I’ll never forget that feeling of panic and dread.”
Lisa says her husband’s bond with Lola is unbreakable today. “People comment all the time about what an amazing connection they have. When he reads her stories, he does all the voices and I hear them cackling away. They have the best time together.”
When their son Arlo was born in December last year, Patrick expected that the second time round, the bond would be instant. It wasn’t,but this time he didn’t panic.
“I know I’m going to end up having the best relationship with him and it’s already growing,” tells Patrick. “I guess the thing is not to worry.”
Deeply touched by her husband’s letter, it was Lisa, with Patrick’s permission, who shared it with a group of mums of Facebook and from there it was shared around the globe.
Patrick says he has been humbled by the messages he has received from parents across the planet who have related to his words. “It’s been quite surreal,” he admits. “It seems I’ve taken the pain I experienced and made it a little bit easier for someone else, and that’s been the most amazing thing to come out of it for me.
“The truth is, you just have to hang in there and you will wake up one day being more in love with another human being than you have ever been.”
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