August 19, 2021 – Sometimes It Just Takes a Leap of Faith (with a little help)

My wife & I both take a lot of pleasure showing & teaching the 8 year old about the myriad mass of cultural and nutritional and miscellaneous details of living nowadays (sometimes as vs when “we” grew up, lol!) – but often enough, he likes to feel he’s returning the favor. He is almost always doing such, usually without realizing it, so I wanted to make it more concrete, for him. This is one such instance.

He’d already done his usual jump-skip over piles of rocks along the greenbelt, many much more visible than usual due to the lack of rain (at least til the other night when it poured!) and I told him I was gonna jump over a couple of chasms myself 😊

This is him doing his easy flow over the field of rocks —

So I tossed him my phone (ie, camera), pressed my hat tighter onto my head, and wished I could have had a shot of the look on his face of, “Really, grandpa?” 😊

From the moment I pressed my foot to the firm surface of the lave like rock below me, I made a little prayer, took a short firm breath, and envisioned crossing the (roughly) 3 1/2 gap to the other rock. The drop was far, but it’d been deep and uneven enough to potentially cause me a problem.

Gauging the speed I needed, plus the foot spacing I needed to safely launch, were all the filled my mind that moment —

And in less than a second it was that time of the moment of no return. Like the younger folk jumping off the small cliff just a bit further down stream. There’s a moment one can’t turn back, literally —

Sailing in the air is but a second. All of it spent eyeing where I was gonna plant my foot, lol!

And landing!

That first firm step and press onto the rock past the small gulf was all I needed! From there momentum alone would at the least tumble me safe onto the rock! Well, maybe not safe, if I tumbled forward — 😏 But I did make it! 😊

I may’ve been better off having the 8 year old shoot a video, but I don’t know. This is still pretty cool. It’s as good for me as I hope these memories will be for him ♥️

I also think that was one of my mom’s highest motivating desires – leaving a natural imprint of the good in life in the children that entered her life.

If there was one dominant group of people at her service and burial recently, it was the sheer number of children, some almost grown, some thinking they were grown 😊 and some still all too happy to be little 💕

For me, for now, doing this one-off jump, and glad to settle back into more fluid, softer motions, is my small contribution ☺️

Stay well all, it’s usually well worth it!

Adan

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Thanks again, everyone! 😊

Adan

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