Twenty-one years ago … TODAY … Kristin Elaine Wike graced the world with her presence for the first time. And the world, as we knew it, would never be the same!!
Yes, I am bragging about my oldest today. I can’t believe she is 21. It seems like only yesterday when Diana told me we were expecting our first child. I went a little numb. Suddenly, there was a lot more at stake and we were going to be responsible for much more than we’d ever been … Honestly, it seems like only yesterday when I held her for the first time in Greenville Memorial Hospital. It seems like only yesterday when I would come home from work and she would hear me and yell “Daddy!!” and come running from wherever she was in our tiny apartment in New Orleans to jump into my arms. And, it didn’t matter what I might’ve had in my hands. She would be airborne and I’d better catch her. And I did!
I often remind my friends who are parents of young children to enjoy every minute of it, because it will be over before you know it!! It seems like only yesterday when I dropped her off at Delmae Heights Elementary School for the first time … then Moore Intermediate …. then Sneed Middle … then West Florence High … then I watched her drive off for the first time … then (gulp) we left her at Clemson University. And it all went by like a flash of light!
I’ll never regret the hours I spent catching for her as she practiced pitching. Times when the ball would jump and hit me in the leg … in the chest … even a time or two in the face. Oh, how those hurt. And, oh, the words she heard her preacher-daddy say. And I’d love to be back on that bucket right now.
Now I find myself with gray hair, a daughter who is a pre-med student in her junior year at Clemson, a son who is a junior at West Florence (he was 1 month old when we moved to Florence), and a wife who apparently made a deal with the devil because the years have changed her very little.
Life is a precious gift. Enjoy every minute!! Happy birthday, Sweetheart!!! But, it is hard to believe …
The Random Thinker 
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