your words

I came across the list tonight.  The list I've been told about, the list that our daughter's babysitter had.  She promised to give it to me, just as soon as she found it after her move.  She's all grown up now, and your princess is more and more grown up as well.  Funny thing, the list has not been found by said babysitter and yet I've discovered it on my desk.  I don't know how it got here, I've never seen it before in my life.  I nearly threw it away, I was decluttering the desk and there it was.

You wrote this list when our little girl was seven years old.  A list of books you felt were important for her to read in her life time, "probably in her last few summers before going off to school" those were your words.

I sit here and read your words over and over.  The two lists of literature. A total of 24 works.  Reading and literature was such an important aspect of your life.

your words still haunt me and bless me all at the same time.

Lists aside, it is a pleasure every day to see her delve into books, to swim in the pages of some great story, or to be able to read aloud to her or to watch as my wife reads to her.  

Reading can be an act of love, one of the most pure. 

I plan to collect these 24 works of literature, hopefully some of the titles are still part of the collection of your books down stairs.  I will make this a gift for your princess along with your note, a graduation gift from her Daddy.  When you wrote this you were thinking eleven years into the future, now it is only eight.  Time does not stop, tragedy, joy, sorrow, excitement, everything keeps going. 

For me it felt like life stopped in 2015, my life did stop.  My life became an existence. I awoke each day and took each breath for our daughter; put one foot in front of the other, let each day start and each day end.  

Today I can say I'm living and not just existing.  Time does not stop and I'm looking forward, embracing each new day, maybe even with a little pepper in my step.  

love you handsome man. 

take care.