Spring Break 2021

*Deep breath in*

…

*Deep breath out*

It’s April 12th, 2021. I’m currently sitting at my desk in Boys Town, Nebraska. I just spent a week with my family on vacation in the Rocky Mountains. The time there was so meaningful. I am deeply grateful for my life, my wife, my three kids, for the provisions and the privileges that have been afforded me.

I do my best to not overlook them.

It’s 7:00am on April 9, 2021. I’m sitting in the living room of the cabin we are staying in. From the couch I have a view of Longs Peak, the tallest and perhaps most iconic peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. This morning the clouds are trying to hide it, but the yellow-orange glow of the morning light flirts with it. My two boys are playing together nicely in the bedroom nearby, using their imagination to come up with all sorts of scenarios together.

My daughter (oh how sweet it is to type that), she sits quietly next to me on the couch. She’s on her phone, but not in a way that distracts her from the present moment. She and I got up early in order to see the sunrise from the top of the YMCA property we are staying at, but the dirt road we had planned on taking was blocked off with a stop sign and a chain. (And a lock. I checked.) We had hoped to take photos together of the early morning light coming up over the mountains, but our plans had been thwarted. So instead, I parked the car on a nearby hill, and we watched the sunrise together. We didn’t take any photos. We just soaked it in while NPR played the news in the background.

While she and I now sit on the couch, my wife sleeps in the kingsize bed in our bedroom. The bedroom gets hot at night, so I cracked the window open so some of the cool mountain air could draft in during the night. When the wind would blow in the night, I’d feel a quick, cool stream of air come down and over the bed. Sometimes I would wake up and forget for a moment where I was, but then that cool air would remind me that I was in the mountains. The place the gives my soul the deepest sense of peace.

My wife likes to sleep in, get her rest, but I’m a morning person. I always have been. I like that my daughter has no trouble getting up early in the morning with me, too. It’s not something I anticipated, but it makes me very happy.

Sounds of the automatic drip coffee maker finishing its brewing gurgle in the small kitchen. The smells from the coffee permeate the room.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude. This is my life. Tears fill my eyes. I feel tender.

I get up from the couch to get a cup of coffee. When I come back from the kitchen I look over to my daughter and she looks up at me. I give her a smile, she smiles back. I go back and sit on the couch to drink my coffee and look out the window again. The sun is higher in the sky now, the mountains glow a light whitish-yellow.