Artis revisited

When I was pregnant with Little Brother (or Little Sister - as I didn't know at that time) and had to stay in bed for weeks on end, Big Brother and Kenji spent a lot of time at the Artis Zoo. It was their thing: Kenji would take his bike upstairs in the elevator, put his boy in the child's seat and I would watch them cycle away.

One day Kenji came home with a movie he made on his mobile phone: Big Brother running like crazy on a stretch of grass, uphill and downhill. Big Brother was nearly 1,5 years old and quite a slow walker. For him to move around that freely was amazing.

This afternoon we stood on that same stretch of grass. Kenji and I watched both our boys run upbeatly on the green. After the baby lion, baby elephant and baby giraffe - which we considered pretty damn cute - Big Brother and Little Brother liked the grass best... Little Brother collected sticks and leaves, Big Brother simply ran. Their smiles were priceless.

"I had néver imagined I would live to see this day", Kenji said. Neither did I. The four of us had never been there together. And the moment we did tread on that grass as a family, we counted our blessings like never before. Cancer was fully absent and the tremendous love for one another was overpowering.
On top of that, Kenji's kisses in the late summer sun tasted completely healthy. I vow to put my trust in second chances.