i love you forever

one of my ultimate childhood stories is 'love you forever'.  my grandbetty used to read it to me and once we had read it a hundred times and the pages were well loved, we realized we did not really need to read it anymore because we knew it by heart...the important part anyway.  

i'll love you forever
i'll like you for always
as long as i'm living 
my baby you'll be

if you don't know this book you need to change your ways.  its the kind of book that wraps itself around you and resonates through and through.  its so very very sweet. 

every time we talked on the phone, we would take turns saying that phrase back and forth before hanging up.  i would say it just as its written, substituting grandbetty in for 'baby'.  she would add in multiple adjectives before saying laura, like precious, darling, angel, beautiful, lovely.  she loved me alot. i loved her infinity.

i said it to her one last time at her funeral ten years ago when we said goodbye to that great lady.

well now i have a baby of my own.  and sometimes late at night i sneak into her room and scoop her up out of her crib.  not because she needs me.  because i need her.  i snuggle her in close to me because i know she will not always be so little and fit perfectly in my arms.  i whisper quietly that i will love her forever and like her for always.  i tell her she will always be my baby, even though she is quickly becoming more of a little girl every single day.  

i keep those moments locked away in a special place in my heart and mind.  i revel in the joy and pain of reciting these sweet, well worn words to my daughter.  these words feel so at home on my tongue and in my mouth.  these words that have been passed back and forth with great care between my grandmother and me.  a grandmother who never met eden, but who i know would have said the same sweet words to her that she said to me. 

words that i will say to you dear eden many times between now and whenever.

i'll love you forever
i'll like you for always
as long as i'm living
my baby you'll be