Tonight I Read to My Son A Final Time

Earlier this week, my wife and I were at a wonderful production of Our Town. Wilder's play, for those who don't know, is about appreciating life, even the seemingly mundane. It is a study of love and loss, of the minutia of life in the face of mortality. In other words, it's about appreciating all the little moments. 

Today was one of those little moments. Yet, it is huge. And I am filled with some big emotions. 

Tonight, I finished the book I was reading to my son. This book was Sanderson's Tress and the Emerald Sea, a delightful pirate adventure in the Cosmere series. But it's more than just a happy ending. 

In order to encourage self-reading a bit more (something he's been reluctant to do for pleasure), we decided this would be the final book. After nearly ten years of reading aloud to him. Those three novels I announced coming this fall. I've read them all to my son. I've read other books of mine, and countless others from other authors. And yes, the next time I write a kids book, I'll probably read it aloud it to him first, or at least hand him a print out before anyone else has seen it. I've read to him in hotels, in hospital rooms, as a baby, a child, and now a young man. 

Tonight, the Sorceress inn Sanderson's story took off on her spaceship (sorry if a spoiler) and Tress sailed upon the emerald seas, reaching her happy ending. We talked a bit about the book. And as I said goodnight, I felt like a page had turned. Ten years of stories. Ten years of shared worlds. 

But it's not a bad thing. Now he sets off for spaceships and oceans on his own. To adventures and worlds and wonders beyond wonders. I'm still eager to talk about the books he's read, even if I'm no longer reading them word for word. 

Sometimes when I look at him, I see the picture above. The baby, smiling and innocent. I'll always see that baby. But he's not a baby anymore. He's growing older and wiser every day, and his old man is both proud and nostalgic to sail these waters with him.