Our Tender Forever

Here we have a heartbreaker.  This is a plaque on one of the benches up on the Pedestrian Bridge.  And what a lovely name for what must have been a very, very special little boy.

When I first came across it, the sentiments reached out across time and just grabbed my old heart, wrung it out, and left me standing there breathless in a kind of dazed trance.

A bliss of confusion and loss and comfort all mixed up in a jumble of conflicting emotions.

I don't know the story of Keaton Galileo Willingham.  I know that he was born on the 94th anniversary of the first successful powered flight.  Wilbur and Orville.  And I know that he didn't live long enough to make it to his fourth birthday.

I don't know anything at all except this torrent, this perfect embrace of aloha set in place by parents is still there, reaching out to the passersby.

Our Tender Forever.

It got to me.

Sometime, when you have a free hour or so, walk over the Pedestrian Bridge and seek out little Keaton Galileo.  He's on the south end of the bridge, there on the east side. He's eternal now, so don't fret yourself that he won't be there.  His spirit is very much alive.

Let who he was and who he is touch your heart.

I am so very, very pleased to have this very special little boy as part of our blog.  And I say OUR blog deliberately.  This blog belongs to all of us.

So...on yer feet, soldier!  We gots alohas to delivers to dem folksies out dere!

Keaton Galileo is with me.  And you.

Beauty all around us, right?

Peace, aloha, and the presence of Keaton Galileo Willingham.

Elijah