UNTIL IT GOES

Dear Spike:

You don't really know what you're going to miss until it goes away.

That's how it was when we stopped rocking you to sleep at night. We'd pushed hard to help you learn to go to sleep in your own bed. We even invented a "happy night-night" routine to help you get in the mood for slumber.

And, I'll admit, the first few nights that you fell asleep on your own were grand. You mother and I hardly knew what to do with ourselves in our newly found adults only time. (We figured it out eventually.)

But after a while, I really got to missing the nights when I'd wrap you up in a blanket, give you a bottle of milk and watch as you fell asleep on my lap. And it made me sad to think that I'd never get to do that again.

You don't really know what you're going to miss until it goes away. And you never really understand how to appreciate something until it goes away — and come back.

Recently, you started asking us to rock you to sleep at night once again. And even though we know it would probably be better if you were falling asleep on your own, your mother and I have been more than happy to oblige.

I know that you'll grow out of this soon enough. And one day it will be true that I will have rocked you to sleep for the very last time.

And since I understand that, now, I'm savoring every precious moment. Rock-a-bye, baby. Rock-a-bye.

Love,
dad

BE SO MINDFUL

Dear Spike:

It warmed up a bit today over yesterday’s sudden freeze, but there’s still a dusty white layer of snow on the Wasatch Mountains and a biting iciness to the air.

It’s autumn. Your first autumn.

Even with the sudden splash of color in the trees and the transcendently awakening way in which the evening sun sets fires to the snowcapped mountains, I always feel there is a sadness to this season. There is no time of year in which we lose daylight faster — and although today is merely 160 seconds shorter than yesterday, it sometimes feels as though the sun is racing across the sky, impatient to nest under the western horizon.

I try to slow down, if only just a little, each fall. This season moves by so quickly, anyway, that it is easy to miss that the leaves today are yellow and tomorrow will be orange and the next day will be red and the next day will be gone. It is simple to miss the majesty of the changing shadows and the turning of the winds.

Indeed, I should be so mindful at all times of the year. And perhaps you will learn, better than I, to find those opportunities in every moment, not just those marked by changing leaves and snowy mountains.

Live. Breathe. Smile. Find yourself in the swirling leaves of your tea. Lose yourself in the way your footsteps sound in the leaves of the fall, in the snow of the winter, in the rain puddles of the spring and on the hard-baked earth of the summer.

Don’t miss any of it.

Love,
dad