"Feet for those who cannot be"

Rain has come to Klaipeda. Last night, leaving the school late after spending time on the phone with relatives, wind was blowing limbs and leaves everywhere, and misty rain blurring all the streetlights. With the wind whipping my scarf around my face and my skirt around my ankles, I didn't even try to put up the umbrella! As I usually do in my walk from school to my apartment, I put on music and sort of floated home in a bubble of happy sound. Sometimes listening to certain songs, I am struck by an irresistable urge to run. So last night, at 11:30, wearing my high-heeled boots and a skirt, I skipped and jumped over puddles through my parking lot !

The thought that I kept having as my legs propelled me up over curbs and the four long flights up to my door is that, I have to savor this all - this movement, and motion, and time - on behalf of those who aren't able to. I was thinking of my aunt. For a few moments of time, I felt like I was supposed to live for her - to breathe in the beautiful storm, the color of the light, the rain matting my hair against my forehead.

I called my cousin and my uncle last night, hoping to get a chance to just say hello to aunt Carol. She is in the long, tedious, faith-stretching process of learning how to live again. She is making amazing progress, but I cannot even imagine going from a fully-functioning, capable, mobile, self-sufficient individual to the place she's at now. To be immobile, having to practice and practice to learning how to hold a pen, let alone type.

And so I treasure my own fingers as I type this, and wish I could will a tiny spark of my nerve pathways into Carol's own fingers! In my warm apartment last night, I could only think of how much I want to live on her behalf, of how I want to somehow impart just a portion of my life into hers.