pen_grunt | It's okay daddy

Derrick is sick, yet again. He went to lay down while I was in the final stages of getting Nadia ready for bed last night. He collapsed wrong-ways on the bed, face-down and legs dangling over the side.

"Where's daddy?" she asked.
"He's not feeling good so he went to lay down."
"I better go check on him," she said with a heavy sigh.

She wandered into our bedroom in footie pajamas and put her hand on his leg. She starts stroking and patting it gently: "Are you okay, daddy?"
"I'll be okay, sweetie, I just don't feel very good."

She ascends the covers onto our bed and kneels beside him. She starts rubbing his back with her tiny still-my-baby hand.

In her soothing-est little mouse-voice: "You'll be okay, daddy. It's okay. You'll be okay. It's alright. You're okay...you're okay."

And then my heart exploded. The end.