Lively Oh So

Right now my family is living in Syracuse, NY, which is in the central NY area.  It’s a decent sized city, although it is nothing compared with New York City, which is an occasionally annoying seven hours away or so.  Still, there is a respectably useful downtown area, with its fair share of resources, opportunities, and cultural outlets.  There are also a goodly number of surrounding suburbs to choose from.  One of the nice things about Syracuse is that it has a good balance, for someone who appreciates such, between the urban and the rural.  Everything is fairly close by, and yet you can drive through gorgeous stretches of woodland on your way from one part of the city to the next.  There are excellent medical facilities, something for just about everyone on the entertainment front, and a special education system that surpasses the general public education system, and yet there are also plentiful farmer’s markers, hiking trails, quiet neighborhoods and yards with more than a few square feet of grass in them.

Since I’m recovering from abdominal surgery, my wardrobe choices for the day were made with nothing but comfort in mind.  I’m wearing the smallest pair of maternity pants (of sweat-pant material, since it is rather cold out) that I could find in the long-neglected box in the garage, because they are designed to fall below the stomach in the front and on the sides, without tugging awkwardly, falling off, or tripping you on excess material gathering by your feet in front, such as you’d have if you attempted that kind of angling with a normal pair of pants.  I am wearing a loose sweatshirt that is very soft and fuzzy inside, to avoid binding of more sore areas, friction against the healing incisions, or irritation of my bruised and abraded skin.  And, because I have a special needs five year old who doesn’t understand why he suddenly can’t snuggle against mommy without her looking other than anguished, I admit that for much of the day, I was also wearing a piece of thin foam cut from a mattress topper, held strategically around me by ACE bandages.

I had a dog and his name was Max. I thought about his name a lot and I remember that my sister and I chose that name from our favorite film. Max was a very beautiful with fair hair and liked to play with us especially with my father he adored him. Actually I do not know why, because my father was the one who was too strict with him. He liked to run and jump a lot, he adored when we were running after him, if we did not run he always would come back and make us run. He was also very vulnerable. If someone shouted on him he was hurt, and he refused to play with us. Now he is not alive anymore, but all of us remembers him very well an still loves him. We used to spend so much time together.

Mr. Glover grabbed some donuts from the crew’s stash, and walked with me over to Dano, who was surely making the most of his oxygen tanks by then.  He sat on a curb with us while we ate and talked together, signed napkins for us since we didn’t have anything else on us, and then, because tackling the hill had taken more charge out of Dano’s scooter than anticipated, he actually pushed him all the way back to where we were staying, talking with us the whole time.  I can’t tell you what that meant to Dano, to have something like that in his life that he could brag about to any average boy his age, to have someone like Mr. Glover going out of his way to make HIM feel cool and special.  That night was the first time in months that Dano had enough appetite to eat his entire dinner, and didn’t need an extra hot shower just to keep his blood moving.  His life might not have been saved, but with that kindness, it was changed.  For that, to me, Danny Glover will always be a star.