Where's My Sunshine?

This is what I saw while waiting to go through the intersection and pick up Mr. 9 after school.

 It was an ugly scene on the roads in Tucson today.

People here do not know how to drive when it's wet.

They slow down to zero before turning, or they speed up and slide around the corners.

 

It's a small town with a few main through streets, so it wasn't totally surprising that the teenager chatting me up in the doctor's waiting room had seen the same accident I'd passed on my way in. 

The driver of the crushed vehicle was in a neck brace, surrounded by paramedics and flashing lights, but turning her head and talking from the driver's seat as I inched by.  It was an intimate glimpse into what must be the worst day she's had in a long time; it felt intrusive, and yet I couldn't look away.

 

Mr. 9 chimed in, wondering if there was blood, because I had blood when I was in the hospital, did I remember that?  Yes, I did, and I remembered that he came to visit me in the hospital on another rainy afternoon, which is when he saw me in the bed... with the drainage tubes filled with blood.

 

Yes, it was scary for all of us. Yes, I'm glad that I'm okay now, too.

 

I love that little boy. 

 

He hugged my waist as I hugged his shoulders and we bumped our hips from the school gate to The Schnozz,  running beneath my brand new purple mini-umbrella .  He was completely under its protection while I held it, yet he insisted on holding it himself, taking fiendish delight in moving it just enough to his side so that I was wet... then wetter... then wetter still.

 

Somehow, his laughter made it all okay.

 

He waited for me at Pilates, watching me breathe deeply.

He slid across the lobby in his socks.

He ran around in the mirrored classroom.

 

And then, there was this.

Asleep on his hand, breathing deeply, he did what everyone wants to do on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. 

It was a shame to wake him up, but the smile on his face as he opened his eyes answered the question in the title of this post.

 

There's my sunshine.