Grateful Friday

Mark did three things when he was growing up.  He ran the neighborhood with Gavin, he destroyed furniture with his light saber battles, and he built with Legos.  The distinctive clinking of Lego bricks while Mark sifted through the pile looking for the piece he wanted is the background noise of his childhood.

We have a spare bedroom now that Mark and I jockey for space in.  I store stuff in there and Mark builds with Legos in there.  He will lose interest or get busy elsewhere and leave a scatter on the floor and I will eventually get tired of it and make him clean it up, then he starts building again.

We reached that part of the ongoing cycle a few days ago.  Mark spent almost all his free time in there yesterday.  I heard the clinking of Legos and it made me happy.  And super grateful.

It reminded me of a year ago when he tried to build with Legos and his back would hurt after a few minutes from bending over.  We soon learned that he had diabetes. It was clear that he had lost so much muscle tone it hurt his back to build with Legos.

I've been going through pictures, trying to clean up the hot mess that is my online photos.

The skinny Mark pictures hurt my heart.  The is Mark, about a year apart.

(And he loves that sweatshirt.)

I'm so grateful a year later that Mark is healthy.  He can build with Legos as long as he wants now.  When we do our daily "active hour" he is back to making the rest of us feel like the out of shape sloths that we are.  Modern medicine is a miracle.  It saved my boy and restored him to energetic and strong.

It should be noted too that Mark, with his eternal love for money, is a little torn about the whole Lego thing.  He keeps looking up what his Lego sets would sell for now if they were unopened and it kills him.

I like the Lego sets opened though.  I like the messy spread of Legos and the amazingly clever and ingenious things he builds.

I love to hear the clinking of him looking for the right Lego piece and knowing my boy is healthy.