"Proctor realizes what he’s seeing: a memory in the making, of the night when her father handed her the tiller and put her in charge. The thought delights him, though not without an underlying twinge of melancholy: **his little girl is growing up so fast. The day will come when she’ll leave him, leave both of them, behind; friends, boys, new experiences, all will take the stage until, one day, he’ll look up to find her gone, off with a family of her own**. "But isn’t that also something to look forward to? To watch his daughter, whom, not so long ago, he held in the palm of a single hand, step into the flow of life? **It’s all very complex, and it seems to him that within this complexity lies the true essence of loving a child: a joy so intense that it can feel like sadness**. Elise, sensing something in him, reaches across the cockpit to take his hand. “I know,” she says." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[parenting]], [[amor-fati]], [[momento-mori]] **Source** -- [[20250424020018 - B - The Ferryman]]