The Bittersweet Walk

You know I really enjoy my afternoon walks with my son Jaxon, but they are truly bittersweet.

The Sweet

On the one hand I am thankful that I have the ability to take him out on walks by myself, that in itself is a big deal under the circumstances. We stroll around the neighborhood scoping out the neighbor’s decorations, nature, what’s new with the construction crew, etc. We call these strolls adventures. On our last adventure we found a pond that we didn’t know was there, we were both so excited. These walks are our way of having fun/alone time together which is very important for both of us.

The Bitter

Jaxon often wants to do things on our adventures that I can’t let him do because I’m in the chair. You know he wants to climb this, explore that, get closer, go down that path, etc. Most of these things I would let him do if I was able bodied and could help him if he got in trouble or if my chair could go these places with out getting stuck. It just reminds me of all the stuff we used to do and all the stuff we could do if this accident didn’t happen.

Overall, the good of the walk out weighs the bad but it does get frustrating.

My illustrations from our walks.

Jaxon climbs the “mountain”.

Jaxon looks to the field across the street.