When We Could Fly...

I can think back on the moment as if it were yesterday. It's a summer day in our old neighbourhood in Scarborough, I'm hot, sweat beading down my neck and chest,  and so full of bliss I imagine the neighbours around me can see sunbeams shining out of my pores.

I'm telling myself to remember this moment, to treasure it. That one day, I may not have what I have right now. Almost reprimanding myself, Sandy - you must remember what you're thinking, feeling and most of all doing.

I'm running. I'm running foot races up and down our street with the neighbourhood children. My daughter running beside me, so are my niece and nephew who live two doors down. I'm at the time probably thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, and running faster even than some of the pre-teen boys. We run over and over again, sometimes letting the kids win before the point comes that I have no chance against them anymore from sheer exhaustion. I suspect that some of the neighbours may think I've lost my marbles; why is she not joining the other grownups on the porch for a relaxing glass of wine?

Why I consciously decided to hold that moment in my memory I'll never understand. Probably at the time I was envisioning myself in my eighties or nineties, thinking that I'd be lucky to walk without a cane. Never imagining that walking just a short distance at age forty-seven would be as challenging and painful as it is.

I wasn't sick then (not entirely true, I've spent most of my adult life with health complications that might well have been the sprouting of ECD). But I wasn't hurting at that moment. I just was. Appreciating a gift that some never have a chance to know. I was going to take this moment, store it away and one day recall it and be very grateful that at one time I could run. Fast, strong, and with joy in my heart.

That memory comes back to me frequently. What blows me away is that I'm not feeling sad that I can't run any more, it's  a sense of overwhelming gratitude that I had consciously, deliberately appreciated the chance to run when I could.