Sunday Afternoon
It is Sunday afternoon and church is over, dinner is served and cleaned up after, a couple of batches of popcorn have been made and eaten, a cake is cooling on the table waiting to be frosted for Michael’s birthday party. (His birthday was weeks ago, but we have set aside today to invite family over to celebrate.)
Michael is a special kid. He has turned five, but due to brain hemorages when he was born premature, hydrocephalus and cerebral palsy, he is at the level of a precocious three year old.
The party won’t be anything special to him. For Michael, every day is a party, and every moment has something to be marvelled at. When opening presents, he enjoys the wrapping paper more than the presents themselves. He can’t eat the cake - he gets fed through a special tube in his stomach wall called a G-Tube. But he loves to sing Happy Birthday and blow out candles.
But that will come later, for now, in between the popcorn, and the birthday cake, we are blowing bubbles.
“Daddy Look!” he exclaims as he manuevers the bubble wand into the bottle and brings it out dripping with bubble solution. Then he blows and shiny translucent magical bubbles appear and go drifting down the lawn in the breeze. 4 kittens of various ages and sizes have come to investigate and are soon stalking and chasing and pouncing and rolling - only to be disappointed when the shiny thing they have caught immediately dissapears.
We blow bubbles for perhaps half an hour, joined by two older siblings, before all lose interest and stray away.
I hope that I can always find the magic in the moments - even the in-between moments like in between the end of dinner and popcorn and waiting for the cake. The bubble blowing was my idea. But even if we had done something else, the real treasure and reward was Michael’s lit up eyes and happy grin as he makes something magical happen.