She says, “ow-ie,” when she feels sad and “happy” when she feels happy.  She says, “walk?” and brings everyone their shoes many times a day.  She lets out shrieks of exuberance as she catapults herself across the yard.  She falls down, sometimes hard, and gets back up, brushes herself off, leaving bits of grass and bark still clinging, and tries again, hundreds of times.  She has not mastered jumping, but practices all the motions of it, her feet not yet leaving the ground.  Each time her face crinkles up with delight.  I ache to be present as a witness the first time she becomes airborne under her own power.  After becoming utterly soaked sliding down and trying to climb back up the wet slide in the steadily falling rain, she screams in protest when it’s time to go home.  Her fury at the injustice of it all endears her to me even more and even though it is impossible to love her more than I already do, my love for her grows bigger and deeper moment by moment.

Furiously, joyfully, painfully, wildly alive, she teaches me how to Be.

  #LivingFrugallyOnSurprise #GrandParenting #WhenYourHeartLivesOutsideYourBody