"Dad? Did you really shield her from the splashed water from the puddle?" Sophie squeaked, blushing at the sweetness of the moment she had just read about.

You didn't expect your daughter to find your diary. When she came to her hometown after graduating from university to spend the summer at her parents' house, you and Simon were looking forward to finally being able to spend this summer together, as they once did when your little girl was little, before she went to build her career, and, most likely, a separate life.

But somehow, your already grown-up daughter, with her father's blond hair and hazel eyes, found your diary in the process of sorting through things from her childhood in the attic. Your old diary, tattered but still preserved, from when you were her age and your relationship with Simon was just beginning.

Sophie was delighted, reading page after page. There were a lot of notes, starting from the very first meeting at the store, when you let him go first in line because he was running late for the bus departure to the new military unit where he was being transferred. Then you gave him your number, and he called through a local phone a few days later, asking his captain for a time to make a call.

It was a sweet thing to do. And there were a lot of such in the diary.

"Ma eyes looked like 'sparklin' buttons'?" Simon raised his eyebrows, but didn't hide his smile after reading the line.

"They matched your jacket that day." You replied, remembering the day he took you on your first official date as a couple.

There was something nostalgic about sitting next to him like this, now, and reading about events that happened more than twenty years ago. You wrote all this yourself, how he made you feel like the most important person on the planet, opening doors for you and always starting a conversation with "Luv, I missed yer voice" when he left for another mission.

Nostalgia, yes. But not in a bad way, no.

Because this whole life you've lived with him has been the happiest life you could ever dream of.