17 Years

Seventeen years ago today, a new little person entered my world and immediately captured my heart.  She has had it ever since.  I was completely unprepared for fatherhood--is anyone ever prepared?--but I have found that she has been forgiving of my shortcomings.  The time has passed too quickly, and now she is a young woman, a junior in high school, who will soon be going on her own way.  She has little room at this stage of her life for sentimentality, but I grow more sentimental every day.  I can still remember holding her in my lap and reading stories to her:

Happy birthday, Emily.