Goodnight My Son

The other night, I had an overwhelming desire to lay with Crew as he was going to sleep. Sometimes I just don't get to see him enough during the day that I want to spend a little more time with him. As is custom with Crew, every night he has to have what he calls "glows." These are glow in the dark sticks that we form into circles and put on his head. With these he also wants his Thomas the Train tent to sleep in on his bed. So as I walked into his room, there he was poking his head out of his tent to see who was coming into his room. With colors of green, orange and purple surrounding his head I saw him smile. His eyes opened wide, and the corners of his lips stretched from ear to ear, revealing cute little gaps between each his teeth. It was his smile, a smile that takes over his face, a smile that could drag my soul away from the deepest of sorrows. Then he said that word that all fathers know too well, that word that has the power to melt a heart, "daddy!" I crawled into his little tent with him, which only allows for his little body, and about a third of mine. Resting my head on his pillow he laid down next to me with that same smile. As we lay there, we named all the Thomas the Train characters we could see through the glow of his tent. After some time, I said to him "good night bud, I got to go." His eyes glowed with an intensity, a happiness, a love, that stopped my heart. He smiled, once again revealing all those little gaps, and said, "daddy, I want to sleep with you." And what he was really saying was, please stay, I love you. I told him I loved him too, and that I always would. - Goodnight my son.