Today, I went with a friend of mine to a cross country ski track a few towns away to try out cross country skiing. I have been country skiing before, but she had not. Well, not the way she was doing it today, anyway. Today she was doing it from a sit ski.
Last year (almost exactly a year ago, actually) she acquired an infection that spread to her spine. On her 27th birthday, she was told that the ridiculously strong antibiotics she had been receiving via IV had been unsuccessful. The damage had gone for too long. The symptoms she had been experiencing, hoping they were temporary, were, in fact, now permanent. On her 27th birthday she received the news that she would be paralyzed from her mid chest down.
Last year she had a very bad year.
This year is different. This year her birthday really meant something. She said she wasn't turning 28, but turning one. She called her birthday party her "I'm still alive party." She said that her life begins now, and that she is going to have fun, damn it! Because in life you are supposed to have fun.
Today was fun.
She was in a sit ski, I was running along behind in Yak Tracks, lending just a tiny bit of help when the fall line of the hills was just too wonky. (I never noticed how crooked and hilly golf courses are. Probably because I don't play golf.) She was mastering the art of reading the terrain, steering with the poles, and figuring out optimal push length for the poles. I was trying to keep up. We were both laughing. A lot. I love laughing.
Today was one of those rare days in February when the temperature hovers near 50 but the ground is still cold enough to hold onto snow, even if it is manmade snow. It was sunny, but not so sunny that you were blinded after so many days of overcast skies. It was the perfect day to be outside, spending time with a good friend, learning a new skill. And laughing.
Today was the kind of day that makes you realize how lucky it is just to be alive.
It was good day.
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