During nearly 14 years we have marked our son’s length on the doorframe by a pen. During 14 years and 90 centimetres.

Sometimes it’s little melancholic to watch those earliest marks down below, already dimmed by morning sunlights of many years. That’s one childhood engraved in wood.

When we some day shall move from this house we can’t take that doorframe with us. It will stay as a remembrance of times past. New dweller will paint over those lines and numbers that there so important to all three of us for many years. Like ancient city of Babylonia hiding under sand dunes, wind blowing over it, those lines will disappear under fresh paint.

I remember a wardrobe door in my childhood home. There was some text printed low relief on the upper corner of the door with golden paint. For years and years I used to jump and try to reach that golden text. In vain. I was too short. I still remember those desperate jumps and stomping of the floor that irritated my Dad who tried to sleep.

Nowadays when I visit my parent’s house I can look down at that door and those golden letters that teased me so many years. Then they were like stars twinkling unreachable up in the northern sky.

I have left that door with golden letters behind me. And we must leave some day this doorframe with pen marks behind us.

Maybe life isn’t letters, words and numbers to leave behind. Maybe it’s doors and doorways to walk through.