My son.
You’re two years old. I sit here, fighting my fingers, willing myself to believe that sentence is fact. Is true. That it means something other than forcing myself to suspend disbelief. Two years ago, snow falling, my miracle enters this world and I still grasp for words and meaning to surround it with. It seems, with no hyperbole, unbelievable that you are here, and you are two, and you speak and chatter and sing and dance and laugh and cry and whine and run and walk and climb and love and do it all as a person. As your own little self.
The first year with you was a case-study in adjustment and admiration, but one in which you were largely absent as a “self” - you squirmed and cried and drank milk by the gallon. This second year… a child emerged. We watched you become you - a living breathing little person with his own thoughts and his own fears and his own weaknesses. We watched you learn how to fall asleep and how to run and how to jump and how to be kind to the dogs and how to get in trouble. We saw you throw fits, hit us, get angry, lose control of yourself, learn to say “sorry.” We watched you become the little fallen self that we all are and it was… stunning. Absolutely stunning.
I’d give most all I am to remember these days, these years, clearly forever. It is alas not possible. We’ll surround ourselves with iPhone photos and digital videos and gigabytes of your image, floating around us. Printed, digital, screen saver and phone background. Everywhere. And now, a video. It’s all I can do to preserve what little bit I can.
With so much joy. So much love. So much complete disbelief.
Your very loving, very proud,
Daddy
