Summer is in full swing here and we have been feeling the heat. Our last free day before going back to school we spent with cousins beating the heat at a local splash park.
I love how quickly these parks cool you off. We brought a bunch of cups and let the kids put the cups over the sprayers. When the water fountain turned the sprayer on the cups would go flying. It makes for great fun for everyone.
But eventually some of us got cold from the water and tired from playing. Here is Lauren above snuggled in her bunny towel and warming herself in the sun.
When we went to leave I realized I had locked my keys in the car. So we laid the towels all out in a row and warmed up in the sun while we waited for my sister to come with the extra set of keys.
While we were at this splash park I couldn't help remembering coming here a year ago with my two sister in laws and their kids. It was the first time after Camille's death that I felt joy again. I was so desperate to feel joy again. I wondered if I would ever laugh again. That day I did laugh and I did feel joy. It was like enjoying a cool breeze after spending weeks in unbearably oppressive heat.
I do not have to work so hard to find joy in my life now. It is no longer the struggle to breath and eat that it was back then. The burden of the grief is still on my shoulders, and there are times that I struggle under its weight. But it is so much more bearable than it was then. For that and for the return of joy to my life I am grateful.
