I'm sitting on the patio right now in the warm early morning sun drinking coffee and working a little bit while Jacob and Henry go up and down the driveway. Over and over and over. Jacob is teaching Henry how to balance on two wheels, having taken the training wheels off earlier this morning. I can tell which heartbeat he hesitates in before he lets go of the back of the bike seat, and I hear the pride and love in his voice as he calls out reinforcement and encouragement once Henry pedals out of reach.
Then he runs to catch up because every time Henry stops he falls off.
Jacob has always been incredibly involved with the kids, from before their births, if you could believe that, as I was gently steered from unhealthy cravings for wonderful things like cheeseburgers and onion rings to salads and wholewheat sandwiches when he would take me out for lunch. He was their surrogate father when Cole worked himself invisible for the past seven years and he was their champion when it seemed like everyone else was busy. I was never sure how Jacob managed to maintain such a presence in our lives when he spread himself so sparing with work commitments and everything else but he did, and he was consistent except and even when he traveled, with postcards, calls and souvenirs.
It is yet one more sign to me that he was meant to be ours.
