The old swing rocked back and forth, never changing its metronomic sways. A young girl with golden, bouncing pigtails squealed with delight, begging her mother to get her to swing even higher. After a while, the mother went back inside their house, leaving the girl to push on her own. Back and forth, back and forth. Her small legs kicked the ground with as much force as her seven-year-old frame could muster.
She couldn't have known the things that swing set saw. She couldn't have seen the girl with breathing problems that once enjoyed it, too. Or the boy with the amputated leg that adored her up until the day he died – and long after. But she did feel a sort of sacred presence embedded within the rusting chains that kept her from falling. A presence she was too young and naïve to understand.
But she kept swaying in the summer air that whispered news of the inevitable autumn days; days that would soon become frozen with December snowflakes. Warm wind kissed her round, rosy cheeks as she sailed through the fading sunlight.
She closed her big blue eyes. And right there, in a small backyard on a swing set filled with nostalgic memories, a little girl felt like she was flying.