regrets…love…hope…

love.  laughs.  caring.  laughing.  hugging and holding.  sleeping but then crying.  playing but then hurting.  painful memories but playful memories too.  dreaming while listening to beautiful songs sung with a beautiful voice and a beautiful soul.  the beauty which is Leonard Cohen.  another beautiful human being gone.
I wake up from my dream and Rylee is staring at me with a big smile.  a big heart.  even bigger soul.  a beautiful person all the way round and I suddenly realize that she is now almost twelve years old!!!  where have all the years gone?  I still clearly remember being at Mount Sinai with Triggy as she screamed while pushing Rylee out into this world.  a beautiful gift from a beautiful person.  a beautiful family of love with all of our ups and downs.  I still clearly remember holding Rylee tightly as well as cutting her umbilical chord.
the years have just gone by way too fast and she has gone through so much for such a small little girl.  various moves to and from the city.  various temporary leaves of absence.  various arguments in front of her.  various levels of complacency while preaching passion and preaching “going for your dreams” has now hit hard and I sit at the age of fifty with a smiling beautiful girl beside me.  my daughter.  MY DAUGHTER.  how I love her soooooooo much but many times choose to avoid her.  what is wrong with me?  love is the most important thing in this life and yet I often avoid it.  I say it but then avoid it.  shame fills me as I see Rylee and Nicole walk away, once again, on a “family trip” without me.  I want to sit down and talk with Rylee about life and her loves and her dislikes and her feelings and her thoughts on school and her thoughts on sports and boys.  I want to sit down and ask her about her dreams and her plans for the future.  I also want to sit on the edge of the dock and hold her tightly as we discuss love and loss and as I begin to dream about this moment tears begin flowing down my red dried out face as I realize that pretty soon Rylee will be grown up and I will see her less and less.  and as I see her less I will regret the lost times of her youth when we could have formed such a tight bond that NOTHING would ever break us apart.  images of funerals then begin to haunt me as time is going by quicker.  another year closer to being gone.  gone from this beautiful earth.  gone from my beautiful wife.  gone from my beautiful daughter.  gone.  gone.  forgotten.  love now.  not later.  be immersed in life with all of it’s ups and downs but be immersed and be present.  do not avoid love but embrace love.  tears once again flowing as I look at a picture of a crying Rylee in her red Christmas outfit.  the tears continue as I see Triggy and Rylee curling up on the hammock or Rylee in her basketball uniform.  tears of joy but also tears of loss.  My Dad never getting an opportunity to meet Triggy and Rylee.  Never getting a chance to see just how amazing one young girl can be.  and how that young girl has then passed down all of her love to another young girl.  a young girl filled with such kindness and love that I feel that somehow someway my Dad must have played a huge part in that.  if only more people were filled with such heart.  such soul.  life passing by quickly as we chase big houses and big cars but life’s most important treasures are sitting right in front of our faces.  do good.  love.  be real.  be honest.  help.  don’t hurt.  there is already too much hate in this world.  don’t add to it.  fight back.  but fight back with love.  not more hate.
“Rylee…I love you soooooooooo much.  You are an amazing human being who, literally, has the world with all of it’s amazing wonders at your fingertips.  YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU CHOOSE AND YOU WILL DO IT WITH SUCH PASSION AND LOVE THAT YOU WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.  JUST DO IT”.
And with that I woke up from my coma and made a choice to love more.  to be more present.  to hug more.  to kiss more.  to be a father.  a father that I never had long enough to appreciate but one who taught me soooo much in such a short time.
more tears as Leonard Cohen continued to speak.
I wiped the tears away and closed my computer.  I took a deep breath and walked out the front door.  feelings of depression subsiding and being replaced with glowing colours of hope.
love.
love.
love.
“Dad…I sometimes wish I had a brother or sister.  why didn’t you have a second child?”
regrets…guilt…tears…
“I am sorry Rylee…my bad…but I love you soooooo much and I will always be there for you…I promise.  I love you too Triggy.”