Dusk

It was a warm August afternoon along the shoreline in Vancouver and the father strolled along the seashore with his wife and children. It didn't matter that their home was far, far away. Home was where the family was. The eldest, a boy, wanted some popcorn so they stopped and the father let go of his need to control his middle aging weight and joined in. The mother kept track of the youngest who was barely a year old.

They walked to a nearby park and the father chased his elder children around and helped them climb on the jungle jim and swing on the swings. In late afternoon they joined another couple and their young child for and headed to dinner together. The walk held the excitement of old friends seeing each in the context of their new family lives. Dinner came and went and they headed out, back in the direction of the hotel. The father was giving a piggy back ride to his second eldest child, a five year old daughter. She felt heavy on his back but his heart was light. This was not the life he had dreamed of, but the life that dreams were made of. He was content and secure.

As the late setting Vancouver sun turned to dusk, something permanent changed. The father's foot stubbed on a piece of sidewalk edging up and he tumbled forward. As he did so his knees hit the ground and the daughter flew over his shoulders. He desperately tried to move his body forward to brace her fall but it did no good. The daughter landed with a thud. She was ok. Fine. A scrapped knee and some tears and some fear about piggy back rides.

The father looks back in time and thinks this was the last moment when his family was intact. He thinks this because there must be a turning point and that life is not just a grey scale.

Dusk. The Vancouver summer's vanishing warmth preludes fall.