Kissing Through Fences Submitted by: Jim Ford - 05/23/08 3:33 pm

Kissing Through Fences There she is, my baby Haley Beth. 8 1/2 years old on deck to bat for her winning season softball team. I've driven to Ruston to catch one of her games. She's so beautiful, so incredibly vibrant, happy, focused, smart, loving baby girl. I'm so full of pride watching her get ready for her time to play. I yell words of encouragement and coaching to her. Then I remember I haven't had the best kisses in the world in at least 5 minutes, so I call her over for a quick smooch. She grabs onto the chain linked fence and puckers up big-time. We both lean in with the metal links pressed against our faces, and get the sweetest little Daddy/Haley kiss. I tell her I love her, she bounds off to the plate and runs out a single to first. I'm ecstatic. Every parent knows their kids are the greatest and those kisses are the best in the world. Every kiss and hug Haley and I have... is through a fence. Am I crazy? Surely we don't carry around a fence? But we do. I wake up every morning to call her at her Mom's house. We sing songs, pray, and send kisses over the phone; our distance/living in 2 different states fence. Every evening we talk about our days, sing songs, pray, and send more kisses, through the phone-fence. Every other weekend we trek a total of 400 miles to and from our homes. Each time I see her running to me at our meeting point for kisses, and when one of us cries when the weekend is over. Kissing through her Mom's car window. Those are our Wal-mart and car fences. She calls to tell me about something exciting, something sad, something I should be there with her for... the ripping of my heart fence. I'm about to pick her up for the summer soon, and for a brief 8 weeks or so, life will be normal again. We'll do everything together and be peas and carrots again. Not every barrier is made of wood, iron, or chain. As I sit high above the clouds in this airplane 1,200 miles from her, pulling on my "thinking beard", tears welling in my eyes missing her; I think, no Daddy should have to kiss his girl through all these fences.

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