My daughter is now in her second year of high school and I strongly sense that dreaded pull of melancholy, realizing that our time together is nearing an end. Even though she is now fifteen and becoming a woman, our relationship is still sweet and innocent. A daddy and his girl. In just the blink of an eye, she will be graduating from high school and going off to college or off to start her life. Since my wife divorced me nearly eight years ago, my daughter has only lived with me part time. Our life together in this period has played out like a movie where half the frames have been cut away and the movie speeds through at double time. The photographs I keep of my daughter around the house captured the little girl that somehow sits more vividly in my mind than the one that I see now. This is likely because I spent so much more time with that younger version of her that the foundations were built up with more of a solid structure.
The other night after my daughter went to bed, I said my goodnights and went across the hallway to putter about in my office while she wound down a bit with her Nintendo game. After a few minutes I realized that I had not given her my customary hug after she was tucked in, so I went into her room to say one more goodnight. She had already fallen asleep, her game sitting on her bedside table untouched from where it had been positioned just a few moments ago. As I whispered my sweet dream wishes to her, I sensed that I had missed an opportunity, like so many other times over the past eight years.
