In the end is the beginning

The Goose pond beckoned with strident honks and flapping wings, with water reflecting visions of dreams of old swirled in the magic of now and even the grease along the walks did not dull my pleasure.

The park four minutes across the parking lot sparkled with the promise of long hot mornings, dewy with Heartland summer humidity, spent lobbing my tennis balls against the old green backboard; and evening strolls around the pine trees growing in grass so lush it looked like velvet from my vantage point at home.

But today, the last day of summer, is the only day I lay one foot near these places.

Last spring, eons of walking on feet so flat they mimicked the geese, rose up and knocked those feet out from under me and I, not knowing what lay ahead, believed it would be another one of those awful inconveniences where I sat around for a few weeks and then sprang back up to resume my life -- only mildly inconvenienced.

Instead it turned into a life altering situation that leaves me floundering on the rim of old age, both arms waving wildly, fearing something worse than death if I do not recover. Calling in all the reserves I am fighting for my independence, something I value more than life, and striving to recoup at extreme costs.

So today I walked near enough the goose pond to see it and all the way over to the tennis courts, near enough to get a whiff of the nostalgic mill dewy smell of summer nets hanging limply from rusty poles. Then on the edge of a splintery picnic table in the shade of the shelter there, I rejoiced in my success.

I made it! My first summer walk in the shadows of the last summer day.