It was a slow morning. He liked slow mornings. So often he felt bombarded by the daily rush and so he cherish the days when things were slow. He lied in bed for a while, watching the sunlight grow brighter until the far wall was turned to gold by the rising sun’s bright rays.

  Fear

  Uncertainty

  Paranoia

  He braced himself as the emotions flooded over him, remnants from the previous night’s dreams. Such strong and unpredictable surges of emotion were normal for him. Sometimes they were from his dreams, leftovers from the nightmares he so commonly had. Sometimes they were from past memories. He tried to remember what the last night’s dream had been about but only the emotions seemed to linger still in his mind. Odd, since he usually remembered his dreams quite vividly. As it was he was relieved that the dream had faded as much as it had and he steadied his breathing and focused on relaxing his body. At last everything in his mind was calm and he sat up in bed and kicked off the covers.

  Pain shot through his left knee as he tried to stand and it took a couple of tries before he was able to get up and get dressed. He’d broken a toe on his right foot a week ago so now neither of his legs were very good at supporting weight.

  It’s going to be one of those days, he thought.

   He was fairly use to pain. It was a fairly constant companion of his, but some days it was sharper than others and today his knee was the sharpest of his pains. He briefly wondered where his knee brace was, or if he would instead need his cane. Maybe he’d just spend the day on the couch and not worry about either one.

        I spend too many days on the couch, he admitted to himself.

   He had just reached the hallway outside of his bedroom when his son, bright and happy and with whom he often wished he could spend more time with, came bounding up to him and wrapped him in a tight hug. They almost toppled over and he had to warn his son that his legs weren’t very stable but rather than pulling away from the hug he held his boy tightly with one arm and placed his other hand against the wall to steady them. Some day his son may not be so happy and eager to hug his dad and he don’t want that day to come sooner rather than later.

   “Do you want to go on a walk with me today?” His son asked eagerly.

   So many thoughts rushed through his mind. They usually went on a walk about once a week so this request was not out of the ordinary, but with his knee hurting as it was, not to mention his broken toe, walking would not be very comfortable. And yet their walks together were some of his favorite moments with his son when they could talk of anything and everything. And again that knowledge that his son was growing, maturing, that he would be a man before he know it and be gone, all tugged at his heart to take every opportunity to be with his son.

     “I would love to,” he said before he could change his mind and his sons broadening smile made him glad for his decision.

   “I’ll go find your knee brace,” his son said at once without any prompting and he took off.

   “I’ll need to eat breakfast before we go,” he called after him and began to make his way carefully down the stairs to the ground floor.

   By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs his son had already found the knee brace and brought it over. He strapped it on and the added support brought the pain in his knee down to a more manageable level. As he ate his breakfast he mused at how eager his son was to go on their walk. Most days he was the one having to motivate his son to go out on a walk and the change was a welcome one.

     It was such a beautiful day. It was a bright and warm morning with just enough of a breeze to keep it comfortable. His son would bound ahead and then stop to wait for him, though he never tried to rush his dad and for that he was grateful. They spoke of video games and cartoon characters for the majority of their walk but near the end, as always happened, his son asked his deeper questions. He asked about the coming school year. He asked about his aging great grandparents. He asked about his little brother and why he wasn’t buried in the infant section of the cemetery.

   His son only really talked about those things when they would be nearing the end of their walks and he don’t know exactly why that was. He wonder if his son was aware of it. Perhaps that’s why he had been so eager to go on a walk that morning, because he had those questions and worries playing in his mind. Perhaps it was just coincidence. Either way they were home before too long and his son happily began watching a movie.

   Thinking about his son and their walk, he couldn’t help but admit that he was happy. He was happy that his knee hurt that morning because it made him weigh how much he wanted to spend time with his son. It helped him see how much his son loved him, by his immediately recognizing the need for the knee brace and his finding it without needing to be asked.

     Not every day was so good. Not every day could he see the silver linings. Some days the pain was too much, either physically or otherwise. Some days he couldn’t shake the terror in his mind and it was all he can do to carry on from one moment to the next. Some days he was trapped in an unending loop of reliving those moments of finding his dead son, of burying his little boy, over and over again.

   And so he cherished that morning, when he was happy, when he could feel happy, when he could give his living son the time and attention that he wished he could give him every day.