Building blocks

I sense it coming now, a feeling reminiscent of getting close to the last page of the last chapter in a book that's carved a piece out of you. I've always been one to mark these events, these "lasts," either consciously or not and without even a sense of why I find it so important to keep track.

There will be, and it's measurable in hours and days now instead of weeks and months, a last time I put my only child to bed. A last time we eat dinner as a family of three. A last time I wake up in the morning and don't have a daughter.

A last time I go through my day without carrying a picture of her face in my mind and my heart.

And who knows what today has in store? I could have already had those lasts and not even know it.

But that's ok. I know it's not really necessary, or even very advisable, to put more emotional stock in "endings" than they merit. To focus on what's not, anymore, is to undermine what's going to be.

Those books that stay with you, they built their foundation while you were staying up too late for comfort because you couldn't put them down.

And the little family of three that started with two almost-kids thrust into the roles of Mama and Daddy, plus a handful of baby who turned their world upside down, that little family doesn't cease to exist just because there's about to be a number four.

It's our foundation. It's who we were upon which we built who we are. And soon enough and without even knowing it's happening, the four of us will start the quiet construction of who we will be.

I think it's going to be pretty amazing.