A tableside guest during our lunch at the Denver Aquarium.
Moments like this are not a given anymore, even though ages 8 and 13 sound a heartbeat apart.
Unless that is, you are a parent.
And then you know one smiles and giggles regularly while the other’s feelings are fleeting.
I readily solve the little one’s heartbreaks, but the older ones pain is real now and more likely cured lifted by a best friend or a matter of time. Unconditional presence and love, the only things I can offer.
One adores me; one grows weary of me.
One I shower with attention, the other I walk a few steps further away from each month now.
Both always return to joy, silliness, and family, and for that, I am grateful. And desperate for this truth to forever be so.
Such a moment like this one, full of old school magic and a glimpse of a past childhood, provide life-giving peace to my soul.