Sunday's heat melted the asphalt and the runners. I ran clipped corners and kept sipping water. Two Sundays and two races, The Summer Roundup and the Zooma Colorado half. At each finish line my daughter waited. She smiled, cheered, and brought the dog up to great my finish.  This past Sunday, moving across the finish line, I remebered  the times I waited for her, supported her, was cheering her finishes and performances. The role reversal is not quite new.A few years ago, when she was still in high school and I was being hit with chemo and radiation and surgeries, she was there, carrying small perfectly prepared plates of food, trying to cajole me into eating, using some of the same words I did when she was young and needed to eat.

She kept her fear for me close to herself, and brought a laughing light presence that cut through my pain and fear and held my soul in its keen clarity of love.

Here she was, waiting and cheering.

"I'm so slow, so slow" I grumbled, throwing myself down in a slit of shade,"it kind of makes me crazy to remember being stronger, faster."

"This is kind of bittersweet", I continued my lament"I'm glad to be here, but I am angry at not being where I was, where I could've been".  

She shook her head. "I'm proud of you Mom. Your training hard, almost every day. You give it 100%. Look at how far you've come. 

You set a goal and you are doing it. You are amazing."  

I mumbled a few words to protest and hang on to my self pity. She would have none of it.

"Its a great day. You just ran two races in two weekends. There is some champagne at the after race party. Enjoy it. Enjoy what you did,

I knew she was right. Its hard when the kid is right.

The clarity of her love continues to hold me and remind me of what is important in life. Thanks Bear. You are my heart.