4. • sometimes a great notion.

46 Notes

4.

Four years ago tonight, I sat in an uncomfortable chair in a mostly dark hospital room, a heavy snow finally beginning to relent outside, holding my baby daughter in my arms while her mother tried to get some much needed, much deserved sleep in the bed next to us. I had been a father for all of a few hours, and I was making the kind of promises new parents make as they study their sleeping child’s face up close, lost in the endless awe and wonder of such a simple moment:

I will always, always love you.

I will never, ever let anything bad happen to you.

It was quiet as I sat there, holding her tight in my arms. We were so new at all of this that we had decided to not even set her down at any point that first night. Instead, we would take turns holding her throughout the night while the other one tried to get some sleep. In the end, of course, the only one that got any real sleep was our daughter, passed back and forth between us, as we attempted to make sense of this new reality wherein we were now official Parents and fully in charge of this beautiful child’s life, while also thinking how this was just maybe the single best moment of our entire lives, separately and together.

It was a whole new world, and it still is, every day.

Happy Birthday, Madeline.