The arm floaties would not be put on.  The stairs woluld not be used, not today.  For today was little Molly’s big girl moment—she was going to jump in the deep end of the pool!

Yet as she stood on the edge of the glistening tiles, her lungs froze.  She couldn’t breathe.  Her heart, meanwhile, wouldn’t stop beating at what seemed like a million miles per hour.

It was all so much scarier from this view.

She wasn’t going to do it.  She was going to do it. She wasn’t going to do it.  She was…well, she was just going to stand there for a little bit longer.

While up there, though, she looked down and locked eyes with her daddy who was already in the pool and close to the projected landing zone.  And in that moment and in those eyes, she saw the most intense kind of love and knew nothing bad could or would happen to her.  She didn’t know it then, but this was the very love that would put pictures in his wallet where money used to be and bruises on his shins when she would fall while learning how to rollerblade.  Because of this very love, she had no reason to doubt.  She knew she could trust him.  She did trust him.

And so she jumped.