“Mom! Mom! Can I have some water?” Willow   yells up to me. I look out the sliding glass doors and down towards her. She’s standing there with a smile across her rosy cheeks and an impatient look on her face. They were playing tag. I tossed down a water bottle and decided to take a brake from my writing and sit on the deck and watch them. Her friend’s mom was playing with them. Oh did I wish I was playing too.

“Mom! You can’t do that” Willow reminds me the week before of the fact I can’t keep up with the hikers. She’s right my walking is to slow and my sense of balance is unstable.  I tell her I can’t today but I did before. I have hiked all over the North Shore and the Rocky Mountains. She gives me a look like, “Ya, right mom. You could never do that.” I remind her that I won the woman’s walk/run at Grand Portage Pow Wow running and pushing her in a stroller when she was two. That there was a day I was physical and quit fast.

I realize that Willow only knows me with physical limitations. She was too young to remember the last years I could run and walk great distances. She has watched me go up and down on the roller coaster of motion from unable to walk to stumbling with a cane to moments free of a device. Anything else is stories to her.

“Mom you ran! Did you see, mom!”  I did run for at least five strides to save our dinner. They were five slow and cricket steps nevertheless they were five strides running. It always gives me hope when my body remembers something it usually has forgotten how to do any more.

I think because Willow has really only known her mother with physical limitations she often holds more acceptance than me. Of course, she has her days of frustration. I have my days too. I began this piece with my frustration of mobility because I remember the day I could run. Most days I have accepted where I am physically. The frustration and acceptance together are what fuel my determination and endurance to walk without a cane again. To dance the way I am imagining even if I don’t run again.

Some days are harder than others for Willow and I living on the roller coaster of motion.

To see more from River's blog, visit http://stumbledstanding.wordpress.com/

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