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The shoeboxes still lie strewn around us, so she licks her fingers and plucks a random card from a random box. “I love going through these. It’s all the beautiful moments that make up our forever,” June muses, her eyes scanning over the little white card. “Like this one.”
She hands it to me.
I read.
February 2, 2024
June’s water broke. I’m going to be a father. My God, I’m going to be a father.
And I’m going to be a good father. Like Andrew.
I’m going to build tree houses and wear funny slippers and make rhymes and stand at the bus stop every morning before work telling my child to have a remarkable day. I’m going to cook family dinners, host barbecues, sing lullabies by the light of the moon, and look for rainbows after every storm. I’m going to be present. I’m going to be brave.
I’m going to put my family first, like my own father never did.
Always. Forever.
Until my very last breath.
They. Come. First.
I nod, teary-eyed and breathless, wrapping my arm around my wife and placing the card back in the box. I close the lid, pulling June close as we eat terrible mushroom pizza on our bedroom floor on her birthday, making more wishes, more memories, more moments that make up our forever.
That’s when our children come barreling into the room with greasy fingers and sauce-covered faces, singing an off-key, high-pitched rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
They leap into our laps, and we all collapse with laughter.
With love.
They come first.
And as June squeezes my hand beneath the pile of children and sends me a love-laced smile, her eyes twinkling blue and brilliant, I realize that I no longer fear my lasts.
Because I know—
Every last will be with them.
