Memory, A Source of Comfort

         When the day to day never ending sameness of caring for my adult daughter starts to get to me I mentally excuse myself for a few minutes to take a walk down Memory Lane.  It gets me out of the present physical situation or task that I can’t leave.

          In the summers when both my girls were young, perhaps 5 and 2 years old, we went to our town’s lake beach in the afternoons.  Since my younger one can’t walk, and I have always been determined to give her a life full of “normal” activities, I found that getting her across the sand was easiest in a bucket type baby sled we used in winter for playing in snow.  While her mental development is delayed, her physical development has always been right on schedule so she was a little bit too tall to be sitting propped up in the infant’s sled.  One day as I was pulling her across the sand, lugging a tote bag, umbrella and chair, I stopped to look around for a good spot and found that she had fallen over—sled and all!  Judging by the trail in the sand I’d been pulling her that way for about 20 feet. The whole side of her head was covered in sand.  I felt so bad!  Righting her, I brushed the sand off her face and out of her hair as best I could as she just looked at me with an expression that said “Good one, Mom!” We set up camp in that spot and continued with our afternoon.  I took her into the water in a turtle shaped float and we played with her sister and the other kids there, then she and I headed back to our little oasis where she napped wrapped in a dry towel and I read a book while her sister played. Those were such pleasant times.  I’m glad I have them in my arsenal of quick getaways which bring me the comfort of knowing that in spite of the routine “not normal” things we must do every day to care for her we have had “normal” fun over the years.