Off on her adventure

This is Erin in front of our first house in Winnipeg on her way to her first day at kindergarten. I cried then, too. And then got in my car and raced to the school to be there as she got off the bus...

When I was in Toronto for surgery on my knee, it occurred to me, as I got on the gurney to be wheeled to the operating room where they were going to cut my leg in half, how unnatural it was to go willingly. To do something like that, they should have to chase you down and tie you up...

I felt the same way last night as we said good bye to Erin. I shouldn't have had to get in my van and drive away. Someone should have had to tear us apart. I wept in the alley behind her apartment as I watched her swing her baby sister around. I know what it is like to leave young siblings. You miss so much as they grow up. I wept as she and Kaetlyn clung to each other and cried as they hugged each other. In those moments all the false fighting and petty jealousies washed away and their love for each other shone through. And then I bawled my fool head off (as Dean would say - only he uses it to refer to the dog: as in barked her fool head off) as I clutched her in that alley behind her apartment. I am so proud of her and I lover her so much. I am going to miss her terribly. And it is not so much a missing of her presence in Vernon. It is more a missing of her childhood - of her still growing up - of her look of glee as she goes to kindergarten for the first time - or her grin as her first tooth fell out - of her dependence on me - of that absolute interdependence and meshing of our lives. I'm not ready for it to be done. There are still so many things I want to give her for her childhood but I can't now. It's done. This is perhaps, a big part of why I weep. I know she will always need me emotionally but in a different way. I guess her leaving for Montreal to me signals a more final door closing on her childhood. The inevitable door. Like the door she went through on her way to kindergarten...