Fur Elise

Somewhere between Wyatt's birthday and today, Elise has grown.  I know this as fact.

On the other side of our garage, out near the old concrete pad that we use for composting and yard waste, I set up a zip-line about a year ago.  It starts about six feet up in one of the two remaining Chestnut trees and runs about twenty yards down to a lesser tree.  I built it in my typical fashion - hastily and in a moment of foolish determination.  I salvaged the runner chain we had used for Ada at one point in time, a thick, metal cable about the width of a drinking straw.  Then, in the late afternoon, I hacked away a few branches, pulled out a drill and bits and began burrowing holes into the meat of Chestnut flesh.  About fifteen minutes after Anna said dinner was on the table and about five minutes before the day lost the last of its light, I had managed to sink two hooks into the opposing trees and had made the metal cable a tight string of tension balancing above the ground.

The kids love the zip-line, and return to it fairly often - often enough to renew my sense of pride and fatherly satisfaction every other week or so.  When Elise made her first maiden voyage across the airy-expanse, she dangled and zipped the whole way, her feet never coming anywhere near the ground.  We had to improvise and arranged for a bucket to be placed on the other end, so that when she finally came to rest, she could tip-toe her way back down to earth, releasing the handles with a snap.  For the most part this worked, well enough at least.

Today, though, she didn't need the bucket.  Now that I think about it, she hasn't needed it for some time.  Not since Wyatt's birthday at least.  That's the last time I can remember her pointing her toes to the top of the bucket turned upside down - searching for a landing pad with her arms still stretched vertically, her body a dangling ornament.  Now, her legs float down to the ground and land softly on the grass near the other end.

But it's not just the zip-line that proves her growing.  For the last few days, Gramma Lis has been working on a nightgown for Elise, a garment she was constructing in her basement.  I knew of this project, but thought little of it.  It is not unusual for Gramma Lis to arrive late in the day with her own projects, although hers are better planned and not as hard on the body - typically new pajamas or dresses or shorts for the summer.  I thought this nightgown would be like the old pajamas, simple pieces sewn together from Anna's old t-shirts.  It was hardly that.

From her neck to the tops of her toes, Elise came out of her room dressed for bed in a soft, white gown with braided cuffs just past her shoulder, a braid of her pinned back to the right side of her head.  To top it off, she had put on a string of fake pearls around her neck.

She approached me in a manner that I can only describe as beloved and sure - walking towards me without saying a word and then standing assuredly as I lay on the couch, her chin just slightly turned up, her hands at her side, waiting to receive a gift.  It was a gift I freely gave.  "You look beautiful, sweetie.  Do you like your new nightgown?"

Still silent, she stood looking at me directly and smiled and nodded a yes.  I said, "Let me give you a hug before you go to bed."

Now, when she knows that she is lovable and feels special, she welcomes my offer and allows herself to be held much longer than is normal.  She is normally too busy or too distracted by some insect or drawing to sit long with me.  So, I treasured this hug - holding her in my arms and knowing that she was content to be held the same, knowing that life only gives such gifts for only the shortest season.

How many more years until I am a nuisance in her life?  How many more years until I become painfully human?  I care not.  That is for another time.  Today.  Well, today she knows that I love her, that she is loved by me not for her appearance but for being Elise.  She knows that she is lovable.  And it stabs me with joy and pain to know she knows that.  Don't we all want to know that?

What manner of man am I that my God is this good to me, that I might see blessedness sweep into the room and stand before me as I lay upon a couch?  Ah, I tremble.  I tremble.