I've known for a while that having a daughter has turned me into a sap of sorts. One of the early warning signs that I noticed was when I started to actually listen to the sappy-sentimental father/daughter songs that I used to gloss over or turn off with a not so smoothly disguised rolling of the eyes.
He grows with her, learning as they go. He feels with her—each restlessness, each fear, each pain. She laughs and he is overjoyed. She reaches out her little arms to him and he rejoices. She sleeps on his shoulder and he does not move her, for fear of waking her. . . .
All disappointments, all failures fade like a mist before this golden girl. His daughter.