Unicorn Child: Where It All Began

"When I am gone, release me, let me go...

I have so many things to see and do.

You musn't tie yourself to me with tears

Be happy that we had so many years.

I gave you my love. You can only guess

How much you gave to me in happiness,

I thank you for the love you each have shown

But now it's time to travel alone.

So grieve awhile for me, if grieve you must,

Then let your grief be comforted by trust...

It's only for a while that we must part,

So bless the memores within your hearts.

I won't be far away, for life goes on...

So if you need me, call and I will come,

Though you can't see me or touch me, I'll be near...

And if you listen with your heart you'll hear

All my love around you soft and clear.

And then, when you must come this way alone,

I'll greet you with a smile. And welcome Home."

- From the literary collection of Charles McCann

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i woke up this morning with an ache in my heart. it was a familiar ache. but i couldn't quite figure what was causing it. i hadn't woken up from a bad dream. i wasn't particularly sad over any recent event. i was just, well... sad.

i met up with an architect during the day to discuss changes i needed to make in my office. after going over details on wood finishes, suspended shelvings and glass partitions, i felt the ache again. then i realized why. i missed my papa. a lot. and i felt the familiar tinge of sadness come creeping back as i remembered how it would have been great if he were to work with me on my office project.

he was an architect in his previous life here on earth. i used to remember climbing up the dinner table and watching him bent over the rolls of floor plans and sketches he was due to present the next day. i loved tinkering with his colorful pens, interestingly shaped stencils and rulers and i particularly enjoyed watching him sharpen every Staedtler 2H pencil to a steely point with just a knife! he taught me so much about art and love for reading in all those moments i spent with him. i learned all the basics that i needed to know about technical drawing and color combinations -- much of which i make good use of in my profession today.

my papa was, to me, an extraordinary man who gave so much more to me in my life than i may have given back. Charles Alexander Joseph McCann was a wonderful grandfather whose tenderness, brilliance and quirkiness i will always remember fondly -- the mornings he would wake up at 4 o'clock just to prepare my bath and breakfast before i left for school, the days he would spend hours and hours clipping comic strips of the Peanuts Gang, Nancy, Henry and Ripley's trivia from the newspapers just to paste them up in little notebooks so i could read them again and again when i grew older, the lunch hours where he would save me from being punished by my grandma for not eating my veggies by shoving them in his pockets and pretended i had eaten them all, the afternoons i would watch him walk home from the corner of our street carrying his brown attaché case from a day of work in his office, and the crazy graffitis he would leave on the backrests of bus seats just to let people know he sat there. all these make up what i know of my papa. and a lot of these are what make up who i am now. it was from him that my love for drawing and the arts began. i bet he would have been proud to see how far i've come.

i miss my papa. and i look forward to seeing him again soon.