Seventeen years ago, I remember it like it happened yesterday. My daughter Cynthia was born. I held her in my arm, her feet tapping on my fingertips, her head resting inside of my elbow and she was peeking up with her big brown eyes from under a huge tuft of black hair, and smiled at me.

I held that little girl and rocked her to sleep. She softly cooed as I comforted the precious thing in the whole world to me, a newborn life.

Tomorrow, on June 19th, 2008, I'm going to watch that girl, the same one I who once was so helpless, walk down the aisle with over three hundred of her classmates and accept her high school diploma at Pioneer High School. I'm going to stand proud, as will hundreds of other parents, as my little girl, who is not so little anymore, end one phase of her life to begin another.

I sit here, on the eve of my flight to Los Angeles, to see my little girl grow up from that dependant child she once was and turn into a young adult, who soon will be off to college, and making her own place in the world.

It's a bit heartbreaking watching my kids, one by one, leave the nest. Once the house was filled with kids of different ages, all working together as a family unit. Now, it's a bit emptier now, with Maria, my eldest, long gone, my next eldest, Jacob, married, then Amanda living in Texas. I only have two left, and starting tomorrow, it's down to one.

I do wish that somehow I could go back to a time where I had my little girl on my knee and we would play "Monsters" on the computer (That was her pet name for classic DOOM). When my little girl would draw cute pictures I'd hang on the refridgerator, when she would ask me questions like "Why is that warm?" and when she would just say "I love you" out of the blue. I miss those times, and they'll live forever in my memories.

Presently, I'm looking up colleges for my girl to apply for. Since she hadn't picked her major, she hadn't applied yet. For now, she wants to get a job, earn a little money and enjoy her youth before picking the path that she follow for a decade or so.

I miss that little baby, but the little woman she's become is someone I'll treasure for the rest of my life.