Love you Forever…
Working with K today at Reading Partners, I asked her to go get a book for us to read. She knelt on the rug in front of the bookcase, glanced around for a bit, and pulled down a book. When she brought it to me, I felt a flash of nostalgia as I read the title Love You Forever.
She started to read, her tiny voice barely audible:
I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be.
During finals week at college, G and I would habitually sit down to a “Friends” study break. The intended 40 minutes quickly became an hour or two or three. Never mind that I had 80 chemical reactions to memorize or that a semester’s worth of powerpoints lay forlorn on my laptop, the romantic and downright ridiculous drama of Joey, Phoebe, Chandler, Ross, Monica and Rachel was too great a draw. We would sit there, munching like chipmunks preparing for hibernation, saying to each other “just one more episode, then we’ll go back to work”. In one episode, Joey, failing to prepare a birthday present for Rachel and Ross’ baby, did a “dramatic reading” of the nearest book he could grab. It was, you guessed it, Love You Forever.
Perhaps one day I’ll read it to my own child, but at that moment, when I looked down at K, I was reminded of someone precious 300 miles away. My little one, as I still call her, is almost as tall as me. I’m sure she’ll gloat when she shoots past me one day. I’m just hoping she’ll at least hit puberty before that happens.
