Swing Life Away

When I signed the girls up for Microsoft benefits at the end of last year, I was offered the chance to get child life insurance.  I was leaning against it until I saw it was only a couple of bucks a month.  Given that I wouldn’t even notice the change in pay, I decided to go ahead and sign up.  At the time I had no idea things could play out as they did, but the day after Emma passed away she let me know that she had a request for the money.

As you may remember from earlier posts, Emma loved to swing.  It was one of the things the nurses would pass on to each other to try when she fussed.  I was at Cowen Park with Matt, taking a walk, and saw a bench dedicated so someone.  Then I looked up and saw a couple of kids laughing and playing on the swing set.  I thought “Emma wouldn’t want the bench watching the swings, she’d want the swing set”. 

I’ve been working with the Seattle Parks Foundation over the last few months to see if Emma could donate a swing set to a park that needs a new one with her money.  They sent me a list of 2 parks initially, but both just didn’t seem right – they were in rich neighborhoods in parks dedicated to people who didn’t fit Emma’s legacy.  I figured we were out of luck until the woman I’m working with wrote “We were going to suggest Lowman Beach Park, but a lot of extra work is going to need to be done before we can put in the new swing set, so it’s much more expensive”.  I looked up the park, and found that it was named for a teacher, and is right on the sound, with a view to the mountains.  I sat on it for a few days, saddened that the park seemed so perfect but we couldn’t put the swing set there. Then I remembered something a friend wrote when looking for a place to live: “But my mother taught me that you’re much more likely to get what you want if you ask”.  So I wrote the woman back and asked for more details, to see if the project cost could be brought down at all, and offering to figure out how to raise more money if necessary. 

Last week I heard back, and they were able to bring the cost down such that Emma’s money will cover it.  With that news, I decided we should go visit the park, to confirm that this was really where Emma wanted her swing set. I was going to visit over the weekend, but something hit me the other day when we were out doing errands and Matt and I decided to go over mid-afternoon. 

We got out of the car, and carried Ella over to the shore.  As we looked around, we saw a woman, wrapped in thin white fabric, lying on the rocks, being photographed.  We watched for a bit, then asked if she was being photographed for a special occasion.  It turns out she is 8 months pregnant with a little girl.  She showed us the multi-colored tutu she had gotten photos in, as well as the butterfly wings.  As we watched her get into the frigid water, we knew for sure this was Emma’s swing set.

The work on the swing set should be started in the next couple of months, and when it’s up we invite you all to come play on it.

Comments

#1 amieable » Swing Time

Anonymous
12:00:00 AM Friday, Jun 13 2008

PingBack from http://infiniteregress.org/amieable/?p=323

#2 re: Swing Life Away

amieable
12:00:00 AM Friday, Jun 13 2008

Amazing post that brought me to tears.  Emma continues to give everyone so many gifts.

#3 Sky of blue, sea of green

Anonymous
12:00:00 AM Wednesday, Nov 26 2008

With the shortened work week, Ellen decided to sleep in a little today. As I saw the sun come up, I knew