Visions

It is forever burned into my memory…

The end of the weekend with my kids, we had an hour left. Off to the beach we go…

Early season, cold water. Doesn’t matter – off come my daughter’s shoes and off she goes – running, splashing, laughing.

The sun setting behind her, I stare in awe at her silhouette, smiling. My precious baby, now a tall and gorgeous young woman, looking for all the world like a frisky gazelle finding its legs, transitioning from an awkward fawn into a laughing and prancing vision of grace and joy. Oblivious to the world, absorbed in the moment of just being free. Beautiful.

I know there will be more sights like this to treasure, but if in the grand scheme of things I ever know the exact time of my passing from this world, it is this vision which I will choose to have in my head as I go.

My child. Laughing, loving life, being free and wonderful, dancing and splashing in the setting sun.

And if this vision of my daughter is the last sight I hold in my darkening mind, let my ears ring to the sound of my son’s laughter.

Let me hear his warm and expressive and infinitely kind voice resonate in my remaining world. Let the last thing I hear be his inquisitive mind beginning a sentence with the word I most love to hear…

“Dad…?”

I have no money and few possessions, but I am a very rich and thankful man.