To My Beautiful Daughter

Sometimes when I miss you, I imagine what you would be doing right now. You would be away at university right now. I imagine you would be happy, you'd have a lot of friends, and I know you'd be doing great. After all, you inherited your grandmother's brains.

I imagine you two would have a wonderful relationship. She'd now have the time to enjoy being around her grandchildren, Discussing political events. Debating whether it is more important to buy organic or locally sourced vegetables with you and your father.

I'm sure you two could finally make him understand that organic means neither healthy nor good for the environment. You would remind him that more and more products are imported from far away due to the growing market for organic foods. Adding to the CO2 footprint, we create. How important it is to check where your food is produced

Yes, organic contain fewer pesticides and hormones, but if it travels across the oceans from South America and China in the hull of massive ocean liners or on freight planes, you don't eat it.

And worst of all, it comes wrapped in layers of plastic. Plastic that needs thousands of years to break down. Plastic that ends up polluting our oceans, found in the stomach of whales and turtles years later.

I remember how we showed him pictures of the plastic island swimming in the middle of the ocean. How he finally stopped buying that bottled water and started using the soda stream. He still laughs every time it makes that farting noise.

We now go to the supermarket that finally opened nearby. They sell produce without wrapping. You bring your own containers and reusable shopping bags and buy exactly the amount you need. There is no waste, no surplus. I love that they even have toilet paper and cotton swabs in paper wrappings.

No, we haven't yet made the transition to not eating meat at all. We aren't as dedicated as you are. But we heard what you said about how the meat industry is the most significant contributor to global warming, so we eat meat only a few times a week.

Just as we understood what you said about the overfishing of the oceans. Yes sweetheart, I still only buy local freshwater fishes and fish from sustainable fishing.

When I think of you, I imagine how you and your older brother would go to the Friday for Future demonstrations—fighting for your future, trying to make people understand that we are living on borrowed time. You would always go together—him watching out for you, just like my older brother always watched out for me.

Your dad and I, we worry for your generation. We try our best to save this planet for you. We switched to energy-saving lamps 20 years ago, when they still gave more darkness than light. We installed water-saving toilet flushers and taught you to turn off the faucet while you're brushing your teeth.

We use bio-degradable soaps and detergents and make sure there are no microplastics in our cosmetics because we know they would end up in the ocean.

But we are still afraid it won't be enough. Not enough to save the climate and the ocean for the next generation.

This is why I made the biggest sacrifice of all. I chose not to have children. Not you nor your brother or your little sister. But I miss you dearly from time to time.