Brooke ran over to me, looked towards a man walking and said in a soft voice, "I thought that was my dad."
I believe my heart stopped beating for a moment. She looked at me with the blended look of happy, I-thought-that-was-him, hope and the realization of loss. She looked at me with a flood of emotions almost as if for an answer. It took a few seconds for her to process this acceptance, then she ran off and played.
Her first experience of thinking someone was her dad, but her daddy has been dead for 1-1/2 years.
In the middle of a park on a sunny afternoon, the unexpected blindsides me.
I remember my own first time I thought I saw him. There is a guy at the gym I go to that I find myself watching all the time. Not in an I'm interested-kind-of-way, but in the he is the same height, body, look and walk kind of way just like Brooke's dad.
It really is a plethora of emotions that hit that first time. I admit now I like to see him, the familiar at the gym, but that first encounter put a halt in my step outside in parking lot.
In the park, I'm not crying or moving, the tears just won't stop falling. The unfairness. Her heart hurting and I can never make that better.
I look up from my park bench for help from God and saw the prettiest scene I hadn't seen while lost in my book.
It looked like a window into heaven.
The jingle of an ice cream truck, a familiar summer tune, pulled in and captured all the kids attention. A welcome relief.
Today we had ice cream.
