{ running through the streets }

Claire,

So here you are now, with your piggy tails and hands with dimples where knuckles will one day be.

With your blue eyes and quick temper. Your sweet kisses and your unwillingness to do what you are told.

And you sit on a chair with your legs perched under your bum, licking the batter from the bowl and playing a game with the polka dot cupcake liners.

And I think of the loveliest quote:

Ever since Happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.

I wonder when people are beyond hope or feel completely out of sorts, if it isn’t a whirl of magic that somehow finds you just when you need it most?

Is it possible, when you were just months old and the world learned your Daddy was going to die, that Happiness wanted nothing more than to make things better?

And I think it has, in a little town in the middle of South Dakota, down a long rural road and around a corner, found you.

Because it’s found me.

And together we sing our hearts out to Keith Urban playing over the speakers and fill the house with the smell of vanilla.

And we let it run through the streets after someone else, knowing that – finally, I can say, we are going to be just fine.