Just A Day at the Park

Yesterday, Sabine and I spent the day at the park with my sister and her three littles and my dad. 

It was blissful to be together with them on such a cool and sunny day. It's almost never that we get to be alone together like that anymore.

But there was a little hole in the scene and it's where my mom should've been. It's so strange how a family changes--and crumbles in a way--when a member goes missing.

I watched my dad quietly push Sabine and cousin Isabel on the swing as they beamed and their toes dangled so freely.

Tiny monster chased birds for a good portion of the day, talking and laughing with them like they were her long lost friends. My dad looked at her and said, "Go get the bird!" Two-year-old Sabine replied, "No, ganpa. It's a pigeon."

There's something about having three generations of family together on a brilliant day under the trees. It makes you think about all of it: your childhood, your parents' childhood, your and your parents' adulthood, and how your child's life will change and grow and ebb and flow through good and bad.

You just hope, since good without bad is unavoidable, that your child lands somewhere brave, strong and mostly happy. And that she has as many beautifully simple and sunny days surrounded by family at the park as she possibly can.

via Observando