Author's Note: If you haven't grown up with the picture book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, then your childhood was lacking and I feel sorry for you :C I didn't particularly like it as a child, mostly because it made my mom cry whenever she'd read it to me. But for some reason, I was thinking fondly of it the other day and out of nowhere...this blossomed forth. And so, because today is Bucky's birthday, I decided to go ahead and share the love :3 I wish I could draw, because then I would turn this into an adorable picture book that I would read to my kids/nieces and nephews/anyone who would park their butt on my lap long enough to listen. But alas, even my stick figures are pathetic, so we'll have to make do with just the words.
A boy held his hurt and bruised best friend and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while he held him, he sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Bucky you'll be.
Bucky grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was a teenager, and he ran all around Brooklyn. He pulled pranks. He got in trouble with gangs. He tried to impress girls and spend all their money so they had to stow away in the back of a freezer truck to get back home. Sometimes his best friend would say, "This jerk drives me CRAZY!"
But at night time, when that teenager was quiet, his best friend sneaked through the fire escape to his window, crawled across the floor, looked up over the side of his bed; and if Bucky was really asleep he picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While he rocked him he sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Bucky you'll be.
Bucky grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was a grown-up man. And he went away to the war, he was captured and had to be rescued, and now he was smaller and weaker than his best friend. Sometimes his best friend wondered if anything would ever be the same again.
But at night time, when everyone was asleep, he quietly pulled back the flap to Bucky's tent, crawled across the floor and looked down at him. If he was really asleep, he picked up that grown-up man and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while he rocked him he sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Bucky you'll be.
Time passed. Bucky changed. He became a ruthless assassin with a metal arm. He had strange friends and he wore strange clothes and he obeyed strange orders to do horrible things to people. Sometimes his best friend thought he was lost forever. But once, when that assassin was about to kill him, his best friend walked up to him, looked him in the eye, and said his name. He couldn't hold Bucky, couldn't rock him back and forth, but all the same he sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Bucky you'll be.
Time passed. Bucky changed again. He changed and he healed until finally, he remembered that he was Bucky again. He left the strange people who gave him orders and got a house of his own across town. But sometimes on dark nights his best friend got onto his motorcycle and drove across town. If all the lights in Bucky's house were out, he opened his bedroom window, crawled across the floor, and looked over the side of his bed. If Bucky was really asleep he picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while he rocked him he sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Bucky you'll be.
Well, that man, he got older and older and older. One day he called up Bucky and said, "You'd better come and see me because I'm very old and sick." So Bucky came to see him. When he came in the door, his best friend tried to sing the song. He sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always...
But he couldn't finish because he was too old and sick. Bucky went to his best friend. He picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And he sang this song:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My Stevie you'll be.