Tonight as I was rocking my little girl to sleep, I sang a song that I sang to her when she was still in her Mama: the Beatles song “Golden Slumbers.” When she got restless in the womb, kicking up a storm, I’d sing this song to her and it clearly calmed her down.

It still does.

There’s something somewhat sad and nostalgic about this song. I suppose I first learned it in the mid-1990s, when my dad introduced me to the Beatles, especially the album Abbey Road, which “Golden Slumbers” appears on.

I started thinking about that period in my life. I had just become a teenager, and the world was not as fresh and wonderful as it had been in my childhood. For whatever reason, my teenage years cast a pall on my outlook, and I began to become jaded. I longed for better days of the past, when things were sunnier. I was a helpless romantic at the time.

Once there was a way to get back home. Sleep pretty darling, do not cry. And I will sing a lullaby.

But as I rocked my seven-month old baby to sleep, I realized something very important: these are those golden days that I’ll look back to someday. Things may be tough right now: the economy is the worst it’s been since the 1930s — 70 years ago — and I may be out of a job and struggling to find work. But these are the golden days. The days when my daughter was still small enough for me to easily hold in my arms, when she gladly went to sleep with Daddy singing over her and holding her close to his beating heart. The days she began crawling, and first said “da-da.”

Golden slumbers fill your eyes. Smiles awake you when you rise. Sleep pretty darling, do not cry. And I will sing a lullaby.

Yep. These are the days I’ll remember fondly.