I received a phone call from my youngest daughter last week to say that she was accepted into University of Toronto this coming fall. She was so excited that I could hear her voice breaking as we talked on the phone. We’re pretty close, the two of us…we think alike and we eat the same things. When she was a baby and I had worked the night shift, I would sleep on the floor beside her crib while she had her daytime naps. When she woke up she would look over the side to make sure I was there. Our taste in movies is pretty close, or at least we sit patiently through the movies that the other one of us has picked out. I cry when she cries and then she laughs while she wipes my tears away. I know that she would protect me to the end of the earth and I would do the same for her. It won’t be a surprise to Makaila when she sees that I am sad and scared to leave her in a place where I am not but she will always know that I believe in her and that I am behind her 120%.
Michael W Smith said it well in a song called “How To Say Goodbye”…
Tell me when the time we had slipped away,
Tomorrow turned to yesterday and I don’t know how.
Tell me what can stop this river of tears,
It’s been building up for years for this moment now.
Here I stand arms open wide,
I’ve held you close, kept you safe til you could fly.
Tell me where the road ahead is gonna bend
And how to harness up the wind and how to say goodbye.
Tell me why does following your dreams
Take you far away from me and I knew that it would.
Tell me how to feel the space you left behind
And how to laugh instead of cry and how to say goodbye.
Love you forever, love you for always,
Dad
