The Sitting.

     For some reason, the image of a father sitting in an overstuffed chair, reading a story to the child sitting on his knee really sums up what it means to be a father. I still remember my dad reading The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe to me and my sister when we were little. Every night after he got back from grad. school, he would read us a chapter. Kasey and I would beg to hear just one more, but he'd refuse, say the story was to be continued, and read again the next night. Now I know there's a pretty good chance he was just so tired from working and going to school that to read one more chapter would've taken an act of heroic proportions, but it also gave us something to look forward to. Now "they" say reading to children is a good way to jump start their education and encourage their love of reading. I don't know if that's true, but the time my father took each night to sit down and read to us not only opened the world of literature to me, but it also showed me how much he cared.
     Sitting down is part of slowing down. It's pretty much the culmination of all the up's and down's previously listed. But it means more to me. I think about the times I'm going to rock my baby girl to sleep while sitting down, how I'm going to probably put her over my knee while sitting down, how I'll be clenching my butt cheeks together so hard that I'll make coal into a diamond in the passenger seat of her first driving lesson, and how (if I'm lucky enough to grow old) I'll probably be seeing her for the last time while sitting down. She won't remember me rocking her to sleep, and I may not remember the last time I see her, but everything else in between will be shared. Yet, that doesn't detract from the times I rock her to sleep and the times she says good bye without me knowing it. By sitting down, I hope to show her she's worth my time, that I love her, and that I want to be with her; instead of having to be with her.
     This sitting down I'm not looking forward to? Most of her recitals. Have you been to those things? Especially in the early years...just awful. But I'll be there, supporting her, with headphones on.