For the last few years on Raines birthday, Ive told some story about her childhood on Facebook. While its most fun to pluck something out of her earliest years (as she was so unbelievably adorable right from the start, as in that one picture below), something she said on the phone a few days ago brought something to my mind from a later point in her life, when she was around 16 (the other picture). At the time I was 43 and dating a woman who was 40. One afternoon found both Raine and I at this womans home. Some unremembered event had left me particularly tired (as we all three were triathletes, it most likely had been a race), so much so that at one point I during some conversation, I decided to simply lay on this womans floor on my back, arms spread straight out, to rest for a bit. It wasnt more than a moment before Raine left her chair, laid down next to me and curled into my side with her head on one of my arms like a pillow. I folded that arm around her and we laid there in silence. A few moments later my friend finally spoke. You have no idea... she began, her voice heavy with emotion, ...what I would have given to have been able to do that with my father. He had died unexpectedly when she was around 25, I think. He had been uncomfortable with the slightest display of affection, least of all such a public display as this, something Raine and I took for granted. To this day, if I extend one arm on a couch, it seems to say to Raine, Curl in here. Lucky me. Its never been lost on me how lucky I am to have been Raines father, or how lucky we are together, or how blessed our eternally close relationship is, but I hear it often in tales like this one or many, many others like it. Makes you just wanna pinch her cheek, bring your face close to hers and say, Woosher waasher woosher wooshie wooshie! (Rainespeak for Isnt this adorable!) Happy birthday, my beloved daughter.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 12:04:23 +0000
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