“I couldn’t see you, but always I thought what you would do if you were here; what would make you smile, what would make you mad. I thought about you before doing anything, tried to make you proud with everything that I did. I thought, “If you were here, and I did this, would you nod? Would you be willing to praise me a little, say I did okay?”

Day after day I thought about this, until it had permeated my very bones, become second nature. That’s why, as time went on, I never even realized—

That as the days had passed, I’d grown into the you I held in my heart.”