the picture I didn't take

I am walking down Wilson Avenue in Bozeman, beneath a ceiling of thick green maple leaves. The air is still and hot. It is the end of July. Across the street a crowd slowly emerges from a funeral home, blinking into the bright day, comforting one another in the quiet circle they form on the sidewalk. Just ahead of me, walks my dad carrying Aven in one arm. She has just fallen and hurt herself. She needs to be comforted, too. Amelia walks beside me, her hand in mine, watching the funeral-goes gather across the street. This is a picture; a memory I see as a still-frame, though it is nothing more than a memory. There is a lesson here, I'm still working through. Something about staying present, about living the day we have in front of us. It is also about the way I feel watching my dad carefully carry my daughter through this moment of the day. And in this moment, I am so intensely grateful.