AIN'T NO DOUBT

Dear Spike:

A year ago at this moment I was holding your tiny body in my arms, rocking in you a not-so-comfy chair in your mother's room on the maternity ward at LDS Hospital.

That chair, that room and that entire ward are all gone now — moved to a new hospital a couple of miles down the road.

That's just the way things work in this world. The new replaces the old. Then the new gets old. And so on an so on.

Some people think it all moves too fast. And maybe they're right. After all, one moment I was rocking you in my arms, the next moment I was listening to you say "mama" for the very first time, a few moments later you we're going to swimming lessons.

And then, boom, here we were, eating birthday cake, singing that silly song, blowing out your candle.

Sure, it can all go by in the blink of an eye. Faster even. And particularly when you really don't want it to.

But if you stop to breathe, to watch, to listen, to smell, to touch, to laugh, to feel, to hurt, to know, to learn, to love — yes, especially to love — you can still enjoy the hell out of it along the way.

The past year has been the best of my life.

Yes, because of you, but maybe not in the way you think. You've forced me to turn on my senses in a way I've never had to do before — at least not for minutes upon hours upon days upon weeks upon months at a time. Together, and particularly with your mother's help, we've enjoyed the hell out of this thing called life, slowing down to watch the birds dancing in the lilac bush outside your window; to listen to the rain patter, patter plop against the backyard fence; to smell the lillies that grow in Mr. Vestal's front yard; to laugh at laughing, just because laughing itself is so darn funny; to feel the cat's long black and white fur (and sometimes to yank it); to hurt when we bump heads together in an ill-fated attempt at a hug; to know every single inch of the floor (and to eat most of what is on it - yecckhhh!); to learn about each other, step by step and sometimes by trial and error...

...

...

... and to love each other. To love the heck out of each other. To love the low-down, right-on, sure-as-can-be, ain't-no-doubt, gonna-be-yours-forever-and-then-some heck out of each other.

Thank you. For all of it.

Love,
dad