Well, it is good and I recognize it can be bad soon enough, so I just accept and thank God for the times when life goes well. Abigail has adjusted well to school and so has Elliott. I am treasuring the times I have alone with each of them … times that i am not struggling to share my attentions, feeling much like a ping pong ball going back and forth from one side of the table to the next.
Yesterday, Elliott and I took a beautiful fall walk through half of Glenwood Gardens. The sky was cerrulean blue. The smell of the foliage was so familiar; the smell of falls long forgotten, but resurrected through my senses. Just watching and being with Elliott made me smile as he took delight in such simple things. He made a game up which i call chase the leaf – the leaves from the big old maple were HUGE and we took turns with our chosen leaf and held it out and ran ahead so the other could chase it just out of fingers\’ reach. We laughed and laughed; it was pure joy.
Elliott would run ahead laughing and looking back every few steps and miraculously enough did not get caught up in his feet as he faced forward again. We rested on a bench down the winding pathway through the fields and on the edge of the wood and ate our pretzels and just sat quietly staring until we headed back. Elliott got tired (no wonder-with all that running =-) ) I carried him in my arms until we reached the bridge over the stream and tried to memorize the feeling of holding and hugging him close to me as I thought of him 12 years from now. I’m thankful for the opportunity to build good memories; it makes looking to the future a more hopeful endeavor. It is good.