The swing

I sit here tonight, tired legs, aching shoulders and an exhausted heart. My legs and shoulders are just an unfortunate consequence of missing four days in the gym last week; due to a 15 hour trip to Missouri. It's funny how we can deceive ourselves into believing that we will find a gym on the road after driving ten hours before we finally stop. Amazing how powerful we sometimes see ourselves in our imaginations. However, after about 6 hours of driving we somehow seem to remember the importance of rest to grow muscle and decide that this is the perfect time to do just that. On the other hand, that brings us to my exhausted heart the muscle that sometimes will never heal, despite the amount of rest it gets. First of all, I must say, that at the beginning of my final journey from almost Mexico, to the land of my childhood; my heart was happy and healthy and singing all of the 2700 miles that took three days to drive. I'm even proud to say that as I drove up to the little church that held so many of the people that still lived in my heart, it continued to sing and I believe even dance as my little happy heart hugged them all. I'm not sure when my heart became so exhausted but I do think I have a good idea when it might have started to become weary. You see as I walked to the porch of the swing that held me as I complained about my childhood problems; across the lawn next door I saw a little person with the whitest of blonde hair and the blue-est of blue eyes coming toward me; and I'm sure I forgot to mention the dirtiest of dirty little puggy feet that carried her tiny frame without a shoe in site. Little did I know at that moment how she would change my stay into what I had envisioned. Her very first words, I could never forget were "how did you get your nails so pink?", with a shy little smile as she peeped at my toes. I, in return as I looked at the worn polish that was covered by dirt on her bare tiny feet replied, " I painted them with the perfect pink polish", and I asked if I should do hers as well. The smile on her face once again made my happy heart smile. She met me at the door the very next day with those same dirty bare feet ready to be the perfect pink, and of course I obliged. I must say for the 3 minutes that it lasted she had the prettiest white feet with the most perfect of pink toes; I can still see her face and the admiration and gratefulness she had for the few minutes of my time that I gave to her. I learned more about her everyday that I spent here. My swing of my childhood became the place that I listened to the problems of this new little person's childhood. I realized that the stories were much sadder than my own; I think this must of been when my heart stopped singing every song....I watched her walk those bare little feet day after day as I listened to the stories of the Mommy that was going to return to her someday or the grandma that just couldn't wait for her to come to Ohio. However, as I looked at the father that gave her a place to stay that wasn't even her own; I knew that those truths were only in her little mind. I watched her day after day as she returned to the place next door that she slept every day in conditions that I thought were not great enough for a girl of her beauty. My heart even started to ache a bit for her. I felt the need to give her my attention the moments that I had with her and listen to the stories that she told that should be beyond her knowing. I must say, probably the final point that did my heart in must have been when I saw her walking across that same lawn next door with those same little bare feet only in the darkness coming to tell me the latest story of her day. I tried not to worry as I saw the truck backed up loading up the furniture that lived in that little house with her, and for the first time I was afraid to sit on our swing and hear her news. I saw those little blue eyes tell me that she was leaving and it would be soon...it would be tonight...and she thought I looked so pretty....and she would miss me....and as the tiniest of tiny arms wrapped around my neck one last time, she said as loud as those pink little lips could say....I love you...I do believe this is when my heart didn't sing, didn't dance, and just broke right into....There I sat, on the swing that fixed everything....completely helpless, completely in love with a little blonde haired beauty that would forever have the sweetest dirty feet and the cleanest, purest heart of any one person that I have ever known. I sometimes wonder to myself, because I got to know her such a short time and she taught me so very much, if maybe the Lord makes tiny little angels with white hair and little dirty feet to see if we can look beyond the dirt and wash the feet of the angel that stands before us....I do believe this is the case of my little angel as I sit on the swing of my childhood and think of the angel that found me here....Life is so good friends sometimes we even get see angels