The following is a guest post from reader Ryan J. Bodine.

Today I held my baby and drew deeply his delightful scent.

I inhaled as wide as I could, filling my chest and my heart with his clean smell.

You feel it – you don’t really smell it. You sense it in the top of your gut or the small of your back, on the side of your neck – the crook of your elbow…

There’s something there just on the outside of knowing. But I know. I know I will fight for him. I know I will die for him. I know that pain and despair will fill my days should anything happen to him. I know I will do everything in my power to protect him. And he knew; somehow, he knew. He relaxed, and in my arms he drifted off to sleep – to dream his baby dreams, of shapes and colors and strange sounds and of his father’s smell.

Today I watched my wife, my beautiful wife, fold laundry. Such a mundane simple task. Even in that, her patience was manifest. Her grace exemplified. Her beauty obvious. We danced today. I held her close and looked into her eyes and saw it there. Today. Something just on the outside of understanding. But I know. She loves me. She misses me. She misses the woman she thought she’d be, the life she feels she should have know. She struggles with that.

But I know. I know I can do better. I know I can work harder, longer, faster. I can be softer, tougher, more gentle, more loving – fierce. I can be a warrior and a poet. For her I can. Today I can, tomorrow I will.

Today I danced with my daughter. She held me close as she stood on my toes just as I did with my dad years ago. I hugged her and she hugged me back. I felt it then. Something just on the outside of thought. But I know. She trusts me. She looks up to me and has infinite faith that all will be well. She burrows her head against me and squeezes me as only a daughter can squeeze a dad. There’s something there…something special in the way its tight and soft at the same time. I’ll be there for her. Today I can, tomorrow I will.

Today I lifted my son to the moon. Again and again and again. Such a silly game. I wasn’t even close to the moon. But for him – there was something there. Something that only he could feel, sense. I lifted him up, arms akimbo, legs flaring out and he screamed as he thought for sure he was going to lift right off and fly straight through the ceiling. I could feel it. Just there, in the way his arms tightened around mine right at the apex, right at the point where any higher and he’d fly out of my arms he tightened so as to not let go.

And I knew. In that moment as I freely lifted him and prepared myself for the chance he’d let go, readied myself to catch him on the way down, I knew. Some day I’d have to let go. But not today.

Not today.