Thursday, March 17, 2005

The Girls 

One wrote me the sweetest love note ever, couched as a recommendation letter, when I was down about the job search. Left it taped to the door when I came home, addressed to Whom It May Concern, but I know she meant me.

The other stomps around the living room with me before bed. To Guster, of all things. At a deafening volume. With a bongo drum and big grin on her face.

One genuinely likes homemaking, enough to refuse my offer to make supper for a change, and to make the result that much more worth it just because I offered.

The other spends an hour oh-so-carefully slipping earrings in and out of my ears. She wants to hear the story of each piercing. Twice. She wants to get her ears pierced someday, just like Daddy.

When it's time to rake the porchside clear of snow and last year's leaves, they let me do it. One makes lunch, while the other cheers me on, wondering at the tiny green shoots, and asking to touch them ever so gently.

One swells, heavy with child, while the other tries to imagine what big sisterhood will mean.

Some days, like today, the sun shines, and Spring turns the earth to gold between our toes. Some days, like today, the jobsearch stalls, and I despair of my vocation.

But no matter how the days flow, both tell me they love me, over and over -- at all the right times, and plenty more for good measure. And I believe them, and consider myself the luckiest man in this whole screwed-up world.

My wife and my daughter, my daughter and my wife. They are my center, my base, my life. They make the world grand. Though we may be jobless and homeless by June, we'll always have each other. And that's enough to keep me sane in the storm, and fill my heart -- and then some.

posted by boyhowdy | 11:17 PM |

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