On Family & The “S” Family

I’m sitting on our back deck as I write this. Meadow and Taza just finished having a picnic on the deck floor. Taza humored Meadow by watching as Meadow places pieces of broken pancake in her mouth and banters about nothing at all while Taza looks at her and pretends to hang on her every word. In reality, I’m sure Taza is saying a silent dog-prayer that goes something like please, please, please let her drop just one piece of that pancake.

The picnic ends and my three little people are bouncing and chanting on the trampoline playing a game that they have made up and named on their own. Turkey ball, they call it. I sip hot coffee which eases the slight chill in the air, while I listen to the springs bounce, bounce, bounce and count the moments until the inevitable argument ends the game and sends all three of them marching in a single file line from the trampoline with angry scowls on their faces.

There they go–three of them, marching like angry soldiers. It never takes long.

This is family life. It’s beautiful, chaotic, wonderful, trying, exhausting, ever-changing, and humbling.

There is no place for perfection in family life. It doesn’t exist, I know. Family is a group of people, writing their story, living their story. A story of becoming. A story of trying. A story of loving. And dreaming. And being.

I loved stepping into the story of this family. A story that began with a love of horses and a story that continues to be written with horses weaved into the fabric of who they are. For, quite literally, seven minutes (before rain stole our time away) I stepped into their beautiful, chaotic story. Husband and wife, Mom and Dad, brothers, animals. There is no neat bow tied around any of it. There is push and pull. There is love and grace. There are four people, living their story–their beautiful story–of love and togetherness.

C & J, I love your story. And I’m so grateful to have met you.