Jackie Danicki

I don’t have the words to express how much I love being with my family. I’m sure the rarity of our visits enhances my enjoyment of them, but every day I seem to laugh harder and marvel more at how fortunate I am to have such kind, funny, and clever people as my kinfolk.

The stories that my father tells about me as a baby are the most fascinating thing to me right now. Some of the stuff I do remember, such as my obsession in toddlerhood with licking fences. Not just any fences, though - I would only lick chain-link fences. As soon as I saw one, I’d run up to it and start lapping at it, laughing the entire time. I can actually remember doing that, and my parents being at once horrified and delighted with their weird little girl.

Other stuff I don’t remember at all - like the bit about me never crying, always smiling, perpetually happy. My dad said that one day, when I was strong enough to stand up but not to walk, he and my mother were throwing a Frisbee around in a park while I watched and clapped. Standing in my play pen, one of them threw the Frisbee really inadequately, and it ended up landing hard on my forehead. According to my dad, I gasped, then started laughing my head off. “This kid is too good to be true,” he told my mother.

Then I learned to talk and everything changed.

I’m off for a day out with my father, brother, and Antoine. It hasn’t even started, and I know that today is going to be one of the best days of my life.

Filed under: Children, Family, Happiness, Home, Life, Relationships