Yesterday. Husband traveling. Me: sore throat. Sluggish, low energy. All day Madison looking for something to do. All day talking about how she wants to improve her time in the 1-mile school run next spring. We bake muffins together. Asks me to go run with her. All day there are distractions. Other kids to take and pick up. Dinner to make. No time to run. I didn't really want to, anyway. Didn't think it would come to pass. Yet there we were at 7:30 p.m., together outside in shorts, tshirts, and running shoes. I showed her some stretches. We walked to the corner and started to run. Her plan: one mile to the lake playground. Get a drink. One mile back. 

As we ran, she kept up a chirpy mostly one-sided conversation. "This feels pretty good! How do you feel, Mom? It's kind of embarrassing when we run past people and they smile at me! Why are they smiling, Mom?" I notice her pure happiness. I notice the still, beautiful lake and the cool breeze that comes off of it as we pass by. I notice the sun beginning to set and wonder why I haven't done this every night of the summer, it's so beautiful. 

We go through the tunnel and up the hill, deciding to stop when we get to the bike rack by the playground. A drink; a quick bathroom stop for her. We take a minute to look out over the lake and then we start back. A little harder. She keeps up her chatter, matching my stride. So many comments that I struggle to contain the huge smile on my face. A stomach cramp but she is a trooper. She is so happy. I am so happy. Earlier at dinner, we had all shared the high point and low point of our day. I couldn't come up with a high point. My low point had been some trouble with Madison.

As we round the corner and turn into our driveway, she says '"I love you so much, mom." 

I have found my high point.  And I smile all night.

I just sent my mom a Mother's Day card, and it's bittersweet, because last year at this time I was in Indiana for Mother's Day as well as my dad's 70th birthday. And then, just one month later, he was dead. As spring appears in Minnesota, I feel like I'm in a vacuum, being sucked back a year and am feeling all the stress and sadness I was feeling a year ago. I look at my journal from last year and it breaks my heart. So I just checked my calendar to see when June 15th is this year...that is the anniversary of my father's death. This year June 15th is Father's Day. When I saw that on my calendar, big tears started rolling down my face.
My daughters are spelling bee winners for their school, and they each have the District Spelling Bee next week. My oldest daughter's Bee is May 14th--dad's birthday. I thought, "He will be so excited to have her in this big Spelling Bee on his birthday!" And then I realized he's gone, and I feel so frustrated because he really would have been thrilled about that. And if he were still here, I'd talk to him on the phone, and he'd talk to Kellis and Madison, and tell them how proud he is of them, and he'd speak to them in the simple way he does that makes them feel like he is one of them. He'd probably tease them gently, and he'd chuckle to me about how great his grandkids are, shaking his head back and forth in wonder, purely happy. Today it just isn't fair that my father is dead, and that I can't wish him a happy birthday next week, and he can't call to see how my girls are, and I won't be giving him a birthday gift for the first time in my life, and on Father's Day, instead of calling him, sending him a card and a gift, I'll be remembering the day a year ago when my mom, my sisters, and three of my nieces stood around him in his hospice bed, laying our hands on his body, silently, tearfully watching and feeling with our own hands as he took his final breath.