Still Recovering

While Annalee has uttered quite a number of words, two particular ones had not been said together before a phone call from Texas to Rhode Island this morning. I have learned in the course of not quite two years of fatherhood that you cannot predict what gestures, words, or moments will reach into your insides and untie you, painfully and beautifully. I have also learned that it doesn't take much. "Hi, Dad" might not seem like devastatingly beautiful words coming from a toddler over a long-distance line, but I know otherwise. I'm still recovering.