My last thoughts,as I drifted off, were as always, of the boy - W. Bruce Cameron

"I will miss you, doodle dog," Ethan said to me.

Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that's counted truly counts.

Hey, there, little fella!” he called. I looked at him uncertainly. What kind of a person was this? What would those hands be like? Would they push me aside, like the first man I had known? Or would they be patient and gentle? “You lost, fella? You lost?” I wasn’t sure about the hands yet, but the voice was kind. And he was talking right to me. The first man had never done that. And he’d never kneeled down so that he was close to my level, either.