Young Gertrude has learned how to wave. She was crawling up the stairs to take a bath, her mother acting as safety net. The whole way up the stairs she waved to me, giggling.

If you heard the shattering of glass, that would be my heart breaking. As you know, this happens to me periodically. The girls will do something that fills my heart with such love and happiness that it feels as though it will burst.

And, of course, at other times they do things that show me how much they have grown and my heart breaks. It’s a difficult emotion to bear. The world falls away and you sit there staring at one person who, in that single moment, represents the entire world to you.

There is a simple test of this moment, especially if you have kids (girls work best). There is a moment where a child threads her little hands around your neck, buries her face in your chest, squeezing tight and says, “I love you daddy.” In that moment wild marmosets could descend from the ceiling and start clawing your eyes out. You wouldn’t feel it because you’d be walking on air, trying to keep your heart bursting out of your chest.

It’s an odd feeling, it’s true. This feeling that you love someone so much that you can’t possibly put it into words or actions. That this little being sitting before you, be she seven or ten months, represents something you love beyond the mere power of mortal men’s descriptions. This love is Epic. This love is heroic. This love is something you can barely contain and yet you must learn how, lest you smother this little child.

Parenting is a series of hellos and goodbyes. I no longer get a goodbye hug at the bus stop. It would betray Matilda’s grown-up nature. After all, how would it look for a second grader to show her emotions in front of her friends? In that moment I have to say goodbye and suppress the urge to run after the bus in a desperate attempt to protect her from the harsh realities of the world. I had to do the same thing when she played soccer. I had to let go and let her do her thing. And Brownies, and birthday parties, and more . . . Already the baby is making us say goodbye. She’s an independent little bugger.

But those goodbyes are balanced out with the hellos. Matilida will come home upset over something that happened and she’ll search out my counsel and comfort. Or, she’ll need to figure something out. So she’ll ask. Or, better yet, she’ll need the answer to a scientific question (how long will the world last?).

But the best hellos are the ones that come unexpectedly. You’re just sitting there, minding your own business and you’ll be attacked with a random act of affection. Those are the best. Yesterday the baby saw me walking up her grandma’s driveway from a window. Her arms started flapping and she was shrieking with joy to see her daddy. The daddy who had walked to the car exactly thirty seconds ago. It made me feel like the most important man on earth.

You never know when that moment will hit you. You just never know. Several years ago, not long after I had met my wife and her lovely two-year-old daughter, I was moving into a new apartment. I had sent my future wife and daughter out to get us all some dinner while my friend and I continued to move all my junk into the new place.

She was gone 30 minutes. Then an hour. Then almost two. No call. No answer at her apartment. I began to worry, I began to fret. We didn’t have the phone turned on at the new place yet and all we had was the friend’s cell phone. I called, frantic, every five seconds, thinking the worst. Finally I got an answer.

And my (future) wife promptly burst into tears. They had been in an accident.I felt that feeling. It was the first time I had felt it. That my entire world was built upon toothpicks and someone had just kicked it. Had anything happened to her . . .

They were fine. But that didn’t make me feel better. I saw the car weeks later and that feeling came back. It was a mangled mess of metal. How both my wife and her daughter had come out of this unscathed . . . I have no idea.

It was that moment that I decided that I’d never be apart from them. That if anything ever happened again, I could be there to make it right.

Sure, the truth of the matter is, I couldn’t make it right all the time. But, I would try. I would give my life trying. Because at that moment I realized that there was nothing in this world more important to me than the two people who had been in that car. And now that car was destroyed. How close had they come?

Thankfully those to people were okay.

But, to this day, if they’re even a second late I break out into a cold sweat.

There are three of them now. My girls. And I will do anything in my power to assure they live a safe and happy life. I know I can’t control the world, but I will fight to the end to ensure their safety and happiness.

Because when a baby stands at your feet with her arms raised, eyes pleading or that little girl wraps her hands around your neck, you sign a contract. A binding, life-long contract.