Five years ago tonight, you were a new babe in my arms, fresh from an unknown place where life begins for some and ends for others. I could not have begun to imagine all the things you would do, all the ways you would learn and grow and change in such a short time. And while the time inside each day has passed as slowly as days tend to do, the time inside the collective years has come and gone in the blink of an eye.

I could close my eyes right now and touch your baby-soft skin, smell the freshness of your baby scent, hear the cadence of your newborn cries. But when I open them again you are running ahead of me, whipping back and forth through time and space unceasingly, with the boundless energy you have carried with you from the beginning.

I hesitate to close my eyes again for fear that when I open them you will have changed in more ways than I can quantify. Yet through the distance of time, you will always be that precious babe, looking on the world with new eyes and gracing us with light for the journey.

The featured image for this post is Big Ben At Dusk by Trey Ratcliff.