This is what grief looks like when you have a child — an everyday Saturday in the park, giving your not-quite-two-year-old exactly what he needs: sunlight and attention. Something that’s been in short supply these past few days.

Grief when you have children means you have to be, as my beloved says, the grownup in the room. You don’t have the ‘luxury’ of taking to your bed. You can’t drown your sorrows, either.

It’s been a rough week, and I haven’t been able to write about it. Suffice to say there will be no grandaughter in May. But today? I’m here w/ my incredibly resilient son, DIL, & grandson. And we spent the afternoon eating off a wooden table at the park, in lambent February sunlight. Being sniffed by a beagle puppy, watching other little bitties toddling through the mulch that’s replaced the concrete & sand of my son’s childhood (much safer and ecological!).

We watched Trin slurp noodles, and lick his fingers from the spicy chicken. He drank some of my San Pelligrino, and then tore off for the slide. At 20+ months, he’s indomitable, believing in his own invincibility.

And I cheer from the sidelines, poignantly aware of mortality, of grief, of the transience of utter happiness. Still, grateful for this very ordinary Saturday. Somehow, it seems especially precious right now.