{"id":3098,"date":"2011-05-26T14:54:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/?p=3098"},"modified":"2011-05-26T14:58:54","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:58:54","slug":"merciless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/merciless\/","title":{"rendered":"Merciless"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is one of the first and finest pictures I have of me and my daughter. Forgive me the luxury of its size.<\/p>\n

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It was taken in mid-January of 2006. Kaylee is about three days shy of five months old — about a month older than Sean is right now.<\/p>\n

I can’t tell you a lot about the picture. I know some friends were in town to visit and were in the background, chatting away. I know Kate (whom I had just met) took the picture. I have no idea why I was giving my little girl a bath at 10 pm, although I suppose I can make an educated guess.<\/p>\n

What I can tell you is that, when I think of pictures of me Kaylee, it is that picture and this one, taken a few months later, that I think of.<\/p>\n

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It might be safe to say that when I think of Kaylee<\/em>, these things are what I think of.<\/p>\n

Here’s the most recent picture I have of my baby girl.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kaylee graduates from kindergarten today. My spies tell me that her class will be performing a song called “First Grade”, sung to the tune of “New York, New York.”<\/p>\n

I’m leaving, today…<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve learned some lessons in the last five and a half years, most of which have been delivered painfully and at regrettable (if ultimately fair) personal cost, and this picture reminds me of the most important.<\/p>\n

Be there.<\/p>\n

It will never matter, ultimately, how many promotions you got, or how many pages your wrote, or (certainly) how many levels you gained — the final accounting of your life only tallies one thing: the memories of you held by your loved ones.<\/p>\n

I am (quite literally) here to tell you that the time you have in which to create those memories is so infinitesimally, astonishingly, vanishingly small<\/em>, every chance flickering away like a bad film projection in the space between breaths.<\/p>\n

Forgive me for the cliche, my loved ones, but they grow up so fast<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’m so very proud of my little girl for how far she’s come, and I can’t wait to see where she’s going to go.<\/p>\n

But goddammit<\/em>, I wish she’d hold still for a little while.<\/p>\n

Just a little.<\/p>\n

Because frankly, this isn’t fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of the first and finest pictures I have of me and my daughter. Forgive me the luxury of its size. It was taken in mid-January of 2006. Kaylee is about three days shy of five months old — about a month older than Sean is right now. I can’t tell you a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Merciless”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afk","category-worth-1k","tag-kaylee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3098"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3104,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions\/3104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}