I went in to my daughter's room this morning to take her to brush her teeth. She was playing on the floor, hopped up and gave me a big hug and told me she wasn't surprised because she heard my footsteps coming. And then she asked why I was sad, "why is your face like this? ☹️". She's 4, she's at an age where I'm not trying to hide things from her but I'm never sure how much to try and explain, but I decided to tell her about how there was a big flood in Texas and a lot of people got hurt, and a lot of the people who got hurt were kids and little girls like her. And I was happy because I love her so much but I was sad because I would be so sad if anything ever happened to her and there are other daddies out there right now who are that kind of sad. And she reassured me that she was OK, and then she said that she would be sad if something happened to her friends, and I talked about how there are little girls who are sad for their friends right now. But that it's good to love people that much to be that sad. And then we brushed teeth.
I'd fucking die. I can't imagine.
We were at the beach weekend before last and I was walking around with her holding a bucket, looking for shells. She was making a princess tower and we needed shells. A 60-70 year old guys was walking down the beach, and he and I made eye contact for a second as he was passing and he just kinda waved, and it was little moment. I can't describe the look on his face or his posture or whatever, maybe I was just in that moment realizing that I was on the flip side of one of the handful of days I experienced as a small child that then make up your entire "going to the beach as a kid" core set of memories, but it was like the guy was waving to his own memory.