Mali and I just finished the first book in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. I read "Little House in the Big Woods" aloud to her (and Mark read parts, too). The last part of the book was so touching to me, that I wanted to post it, in attempt to keep it in our memories. So, if you're interested, read on:

Then Pa began to play again the song about Old Grimes. . . Pa's strong, sweet voice was softly singing:

"Shall auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?. . . Shall auld acquaintance be forgot, and the days of auld lang syne?"

When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, "What are days of auld lang syne, Pa?"

"They are the days of a long time ago, Laura," Pa said. "Go to sleep, now."

But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the firelight gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

She thought to herself, "This is now."

She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.

(Thank you, author Laura Ingalls Wilder and illustrator Garth Williams)