toothless grins

look ma! no teeth (yet)!

...in a few short days, my little cadence will reach her 7 month birthday...i really can't believe how fast time is flying by us...and despite all the drooling and knawing, she's still got that charming toothless grin...but she's already looking more and more like a little girl and not so much the little baby whom i could cradle so easily in my arms...

...i used to know what it's like to be the apple of my daddy's eye, and now i know how it feels to be on the other side...now i know what it meant to my dad, those days that i spent by his side in the hospital as his life slipped away...now i understand a little bit the overwhelming power of emotion he must have felt in the last moments as i held him and he breathed his last...it is a potent force, this love for a tiny little someone who will always be a part of me...

...it's the latter half of april, and this is a time of the year when i tend to reflect on life and death all that's in between...in a couple weeks, it'll have been 3 years since my dad passed away, an event that has left indellible marks of sorrow and tenderness on my heart...so much has happened in those 3 years...i had no idea then that i would come to know a joy that is so powerfully beautiful as is my little cadence joy...oh, how i wish my dad could see us now...and whether you think me silly or not, i have to say that i think he does see us, and that even he is not immune to the joy that emmanates from this little being, my little cadence joy...