My daughter, today, I got my first hint of sadness about you growing up. See, ever since your first night home from the hospital, I have taken the late night shift helping you get to sleep. After you ate at 1 or 2 am, I’d cradle you in my arms and walk endless circles around the kitchen island. I’d plant your feet in my stomach and cradle your head in my hands like the Hindus who raise holy water up from the river Ganges. In the creeping traces of moonlight, I’d help you calm down from screaming until you passed out. Then I’d walk even further to make sure you’d stay asleep. I got good at it, too, and could sometimes have you out cold in no time at all. Then one day we bought an automatic swing for you. You loved it. Instantly you were calm inside it. You were fascinated and wide-eyed about its reflective mirror on the motor above you. And you slept on your own. It was nice, for you and for us. But for a brief moment, I realized you didn’t need me to help you sleep. You were now growing capable of doing it yourself. And I already lamented the times I’d no longer get to hold you at night. So listen my daughter, grow up. Be independent. Take on the world and succeed at life. And remember, on the days that the world feels like pure chaos and all you want to do is scream like an infant who can’t sleep, remember that somewhere in the eternal past there always walks a younger me cradling an even younger you in my arms as I carefully pace my steps in the dark to create the soft rhythm of a heartbeat so that you can know the thm…thm…thm…thm… of rest and peace. #growingup #gotosleep #fatherlessons #Fatherhood
IMAGE: This is a long exposure of me walking you around our kitchen island. The white glow is my phone (on which I wrote most of these Father Lessons while rocking you to sleep). In the bottom of the image, you see blue and blond colors. That’s your swaddle and hair.
