Into the elements (only two more posts…)

Finn moved into the elements today.  The french doors were wide open with the warm sun streaming down.  The snow and ice on the deck receding by the hour.  That’s when Finn looked out.

He stood on the threshold a while, taking it in.  He’d crawled out these doors a couple of times in the past, but not with such deliberateness.  Before, he crossed the threshold like a wind-up toy seeking an open floor.  Today he was an explorer uncertain of what lay beyond.  He did not look back; he slowly went to his crawling position and stretched into the unknown.

One small step for man, one giant stretch for Finn.

I followed him, quietly.  He moved to the receding ice and touched it and pulled his hand away.  I wonder if it felt like fire, all that cold.  His face said so.  He looked and touched it again, trying to pinch the slippery thing in his fingers.  The dogs saw the commotion and moved into place.  They like playing with ice.  I threw them some pieces as I knelt next to Finn.  Finn watched them crunch the ice and wait for more.

And this evening, as I made a fire, I looked behind me at Finn who sat, leaning hard, his head cocked to peer around my frame and into the flickering light.  He gazed for a solid minute.

As Finn ramps up to turn one, he’s growing more alert and capable exponentially.  He used to stretch for the knobs on the kitchen cabinets just six weeks ago.  Now he grabs them with a bended elbow.  He’ll now hold the telephone, as he did this morning, and pretend to talk on it.  The person he prank called, thankfully, didn’t call us back.  I would have asked Finn to talk to him and calm the man.

Finn has taught me, or rather reinforced, to see the world fresh.  This telephone, that book, this leather cushion, and that small package.  Here’s a soft pillow and soft kisses, a ray of sunshine and a familiar face stepping through the door.  Simple pleasures that go easily overlooked.  I take Finn’s feet and rub them against the scruff on my chin and he giggles.  He opens the spice cabinet and pulls out a Tabasco bottle to lick the cap.  Something on the cap is tasty to him, some residue of pepperiness left over from the factory.

These are all graces to grab.  This is the stuff of life worth celebrating.  The brisk walk in the later afternoon and the long shadows of the trees.  The dogs tossing themselves into deep snow to chase a weasel.  And, though it sounds so very unspiritual, this is one of the reasons Jesus died.  Not just died, but rose again.  To make us alive to the world.  To redeem a world alive.

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