Ten years ago today, we laid you to rest.
You drifted into the quiet depths of eternity, settling silently on the ocean floor.
Sometimes, I find myself standing on the shoreline, gazing out over the endless waters, searching for a sign of you.
In the searching, I am reminded of one of the many treasures you left behind: Remember when you used to read the book "Love You Forever" to us all the time? https://a.co/d/fDUkIx0
You’d always tear up while reading it, whether we were 8 years old or 25 with kids of our own.
Sometimes, the emotions made me want to run away when you read it.
But it was always a quiet joy to hear, and it’s a treasure I still love to look back on and I'm grateful for these memories and this book that I still have.
I've adapted the book in my own way for you:
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In 1981, you held me as a baby and very slowly rocked me back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while you held me, you sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.
Well I grew. I grew and grew and grew.
I grew until I was a teenager. I had wild friends and wore the Stüssy shirts, LA Gear, and listened to MC Hammer loudly.
After school, my friends and I would race our BMX bikes through the neighborhood, flying over makeshift jumps we built wherever we could. And in the backyard, the go-cart track called to me—I couldn’t resist the thrill of speeding around its twists and turns, pushing faster and faster, chasing a feeling that never seemed to fade.
You felt like you were in a zoo raising wild animals!
But at night time, when I was somehow asleep, you opened the door to my room, crawled across the floor and looked up over the side of the bed. If I was really asleep you picked me up and rocked me back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
While you rocked me you sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.
That teenager grew. I grew and grew and grew. I left home, went to school, got married and had my own kids.
You got older. You got older and older and older. One day you called me up and said, "You'd better come see me because I'm very very, very sick."
So I came to see you. When I came in the door you tried to sing the song. You sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always... ... . . . .
But you couldn't finish because you were too sick.
I went to you and picked you up and rocked you back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
And I sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my mother you'll be.
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❤️
Jake