Sometimes you stop and pause and look around and notice that it’s already way ahead of you.

Sometimes you wake up and find four years gone in a blink.

Sometimes a baby blinks and becomes a little girl.

You wonder where the last year went, where the last four disappeared to.

You recall holding her in your arms and letting the rest of the world fall by the wayside.

You remember looking into that angelic face and thinking that it could stop time.

Yet it didn’t. Time stops for no one.

You can pinpoint moments but it all seems like one big blur.

You wonder if there will be one day when you sit next to her, not a little girl but a young woman, to tell her all about it.

Probably not because those are the hard conversations, the ones often never had, the ones saved for the stories you write. It’s easier that way.

But maybe, just maybe . . .

Maybe you’ll tell her that the constant in those chaotic four years was that passionate, unbridled smile. The girl who woke and went to bed with a song in her soul. The smile that couldn’t be tamed, the fierce love that couldn’t be hidden. The dynamic young life known as Kylie.

No matter what happens today and tomorrow and the following days to come, you will know this: these were treasured moments.

You had more than most, and despite the anxious shadows following you, time was on your side.

The bond between a father and his firstborn daughter—hopefully that will always be there. Like songs in a permanent playlist, the sounds of memories will hopefully always remain.

As your daughter turns four today, you remain thankful for this wonderfully elusive stranger known as time. Time to get to know her. Time to see life through her eyes. Time to ignore everything else and be a child again.

Every day is a gift. So you’ve said before and so you continue to believe.

Happy birthday, Kylie Shea Thrasher.