graced with grace

I snapped these pictures yesterday on my way out hiking the Bob Jones Trail in Avila Beach. Every time I hike the trail, out from the beach and back to the beach, I stop at this place and bow to Isabella. Which has me bowing to living each day as if. As if it’s the only one I’ve got. Maybe the only one I’m gonna get. Live it as to carry on for my dead best friends – Bob, Doug, and Billy. To carry on for Linda Eastman McCartney. To carry on for an eight-year old Isabella Fow.

Usually there are fellow travelers on the bench, often moms, as it sits at the edge of a play area with four swings, a slide, and a pull-up bar. Yesterday it was all empty, and I had a joyful swing for a while, up into the wild, blue yonder. Then I stopped and hung out with Isabella just a bit, traveled down the path until turning around to take these photos. And now here we all are.

I could write novels about Bob Zimmerman, Dr. Douglas Martin, and Billy MacDonald. I loved them. I was able to write about Linda because I lived and shared that time with she and Paul. All I know of Isabella is that she was obviously living it – being all that childish joy – and the trailside invitation to join in – Yesterday, today, if I get a tomorrow. So I’m borrowing words here from the obituary of this young woman:

“Isabella Grace Fow was born in July 2005 to Jonathan and Leslie Fow in San Luis Obispo, and passed away Saturday, Feb. 15, 2014. She lived in Avila Beach and was a third grader at Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School. Isabella was an amazing big sister to her brother, Olin, and sisters Ava Lou and Lilla. Isabella was an amazing child, full of love for everyone. Her big smiles and warm heart lit up our lives. She was an avid reader, wrote poems and stories in her journals and drew beautiful pictures of horses. In addition to her parents Jon and Leslie, Isabella is survived…..”

The fact I’m still here, surviving, to write in this mountain bench space, amidst a life filled with shenanigans of stupidity, substance abuse, and bad decisions (and, yeah all the compassionaite sweet stuff too), is grace. And how about that you’re getting to read it.

Graced with grace.