Showing Her the World

This was at Red Hill Park only a year and four months ago... but what a world different for so many reasons.

Evelyn was so tiny and life was so routine-- going to Red Hill Park was an easy jaunt after school, but it was also all I could offer of the world and was happy to do so.

To think of all that Evelyn has seen with her little buddy, Heidi, at this point in time, and how very abnormal our normal has become...

But today she would show Heidi a cruise-liner disappearing into the harbor mist between Canada and the northern most point of the United States;

a crab the size of her head eating an early dinner in a tide pool;

a plane landing in the waters of the Puget Sound on pontoons;

a piece of petrified wood in the Utah desert;

a Gray whale spouting alongside orcas in the surf;

a river older than time whispering new tales to tiny ears;

a lighthouse weathered and worn by storm after storm who proudly stands its ground;

a shiny agate in the sand polished smooth and shiny after years of being tossed in the surf;

and a tattered bow from the closet that tagged along from a forgotten drawer in a house in Rancho Cucamonga to its present home in a small girl's tiny RV home.

A duckling in a dirty, manmade pond was a wonder and still is. What we've shown this little adventurous spirit since this day, though, is astounding.

It's moments like these that are astounding. I treasure these moments and miss their simplicity terribly; yet, we have no idea what tomorrow will offer, and we know it will be different than the day before.

For that... well, for that, we can't count our blessings enough.