An act of Care

My father came into the bedroom of my brothers and me every night before he went to bed and pulled the covers up on us and tucked us in. We would have been mostly asleep but we always had the vague sense that a hand was present and a vigil performed. This act was probably never necessary, as our rooms were warm, though our covers were often kicked off because young boys are restless sleepers; at least we were; fidgeting night and day! Where did that routine of his come from? Probably an automatic act from the need to show us protection through the darkness of the night and its terrors! A form of gathering us in! I don't think, I confess, ever doing that with my children! It's only now that I think about that act as one of care, a visible sign of an invisible impulse of love. We do little things to signify love! Different things unique to us. Different ways of expression! My dad's was his unique act! They only signify what they mean to us and what they meant for them, at times as we reflect on them. Hey! That was an act that I never really recognized the significance of at that time. It was just accepted that that was what he did. The small and seemingly inconsequential visible signs of parental love so often are under the radar until your soft wear revisits a reawakened state! When Robert Munsch published his fabulous children's book "Love You Forever", it made me wish I had tucked in the covers more often for my mother and father before they died!