Ode to my daughter

Remember her? You can read all about my child in the post from August of 2009. She's no longer that teenage girl-child, but a professional woman in a house a few miles away. In some ways life has changed, but in other ways it is just the same. She is still entrancing, and one of the most fun people I know.

But where she always had to have red shoes growing up, now they are gold. And she used to come to visit me at the library where I worked, but in recent years I paid a visit to the library where she worked instead. I've now retired, and she is starting out with a real live master's degree to make her undoubtedly unique mark on the world. 

I once heard an illustration of a duck in the water--it looks serene and calm gliding through the water, but underneath it's paddling like mad. That has always been true of me and I have a suspicion that it's true of her too. Unfortunately, that's the way life often is. May she experience extended periods of real calm, as unlikely as it is. 

I have been honored beyond measure that she often reaches out to me for conversation, consolation, confession, recipes, and shared delights. She is a woman of faith, and really tries to live a life according to it. She is an artist, a writer, a rescuer of cats, and an adventurous woman with so many friends. Rosie, I am prouder of you than you will ever know. Long way you wave.

Love, Spud