This was .
“Daddy,” he said, serious now. “The bunny says I’m kind. Am I kind?”
“The bunny came,” Theo repeated, more urgently this time. He held up the Peep like a holy relic.
For the uninitiated: fatherhood doesn’t ship as a finished product. You don’t wake up on delivery day with a gold master. You get an alpha—crying, sleepless, terrifying. Then beta: the walking, the talking, the tantrums in the cereal aisle. Each holiday, each season, each tiny catastrophe and triumph increments the version number. proud father v0 13 0 easter westy
But this year—this —something clicked. The night before, I’d stayed up later than I should have. Not wrapping presents. Not stuffing eggs. Just sitting in the dark living room, looking at the empty spot on the rug where Theo’s train track had been. The house was quiet except for the central heating’s low cough.
Just a man who keeps showing up for the updates. Next release: Summer solstice. Expected features: first skinned knee, successful ice cream cone retrieval, and the continued, astonishing business of watching a person bloom.
“Daddy,” he said, stopping suddenly. “Why Easter?” This was
I thought about my own father. He was a good man. A proud man, but not a proud father —not in the way I’m learning to be. He provided. He showed up. But he didn’t know how to say I am in awe of you without it coming out as you did okay, I suppose . That was his version. Maybe 0.4. Maybe 0.5. He never got the patch that unlocked emotional fluency.
“It’s about new things,” I said finally. “About things that were sleeping… waking up.”
“Daddy. The bunny came.”
Easter, age 4. West Yorkshire. You asked me why Easter. I said new things waking up. You pointed at a flower. You were right. I love you. I am so proud of you. Version 0.13.0 – stable, joyful, still learning.
I closed the phone.
He nodded again. Then he ran off to the slide, and I stood there, hands in pockets, watching him climb. And I felt it—full, undeniable, embarrassing in its intensity: . Am I kind