I look up the definition of the word august and it reads:

au*gust Adjective

Respected and impressive. “he was in august company”

***

I’m finding a rare moment this morning where my life isn’t calling. Kristin is getting Cyrus up and ready for school while I am sitting at the kitchen table drinking the dark coffee she brewed, our overlapping schedules leaving me freed up until she leaves later this morning to head back to Durango, where her life is definitely calling.

It’s been a while since I have written any kind of an update, and although I wish I could share words describing the richness and emotion that came with Cyrus’ first days back on campus, I cannot, as I wasn’t there. The fullness of those days is with Kristin, as she worked to dial in our caregiving routine to fit the new demands of Cyrus’s school schedule and witnessed the range of feelings that came with being back on campus with friends, teachers, and all the challenges that are presented to a high school senior returning to his academic community as a quadriplegic.

But I can tell you about August. I was in Colorado Springs caregiving for 27 of 29 days last month as Kristin prepared the charter school she administrates for the upcoming year, before she arrived last week to orient her own son to the incoming start of school. With almost all things school related Kristin offers our family profound reassurance: looking over class schedules, making sure Cyrus has online versions of his textbooks, meeting with administrators to discuss accessibility issues, directing me to advocate for our son in certain cases, and staying in touch with the Craig Hospital educational team to understand needs of which we and the FVS school administration may not be aware.

I offer a different quality of reassurance to our son.

The month of August was a true highlight in my life and as Cyrus and I sat together on our last night before his mom arrived, I said to him that when we looked back we would remember the month for how good it was. Cyrus agreed.

The end of Cyrus' summer was shaped by the simplicity our morning and evening routines at home, while spanning outward to include thrice-weekly trips up and back to Denver on I-25 for ongoing rehabilitation appointments at Craig Hospital, a trip to Red Rocks to see a Slightly Stupid concert with only friends the van, another trip to Denver to see Pulitzer Prize winning rapper Kendrick Lamar sell-out the Ball Arena and leave Cyrus and Braedon jaw-dropped, frequent excursions with local friends in the van out to wherever they go, returning with fast-food trash hours later, many afternoons spent

 in parks chilling out with Cyrus’s fast-growing Bernese/Golden mix, Chela, reinforcing ongoing puppy-training, countless evenings of settling in to watch a couple episodes of Breaking Bad, now into our fifth season, and a pivotal trip into the mountains.

Reassurance and joy.

This is what I see to be my role as a caregiver: to offer reassurance and joy.

Our last two days together culminated in a trip up to Leadville, CO, the highest elevation municipality in the country, seated at over 10,000 feet.

The last time we were there, Cyrus reminded me, we were chasing powder.

This time we were going to an invitation-only event hosted by High Fives, an organization which gets spinal-cord injured athletes back to the sports they love. This event was an adaptive Moto-cross outing focused on three athletes in particular, who were getting back on motorcycles for the first time since having fallen off to them, badly. Getting back on dirt-bikes is a possibility for paraplegics, whose legs can be strapped into adapted motorcycles and which can be controlled with full arm and hand function. For Cyrus, the invitation was more an opportunity to meet and connect with the High Five community, as quadriplegics can’t really ride bikes.

Throughout the month, and especially when traveling to Leadville, a certain familiarity revealed itself. The days reminded me of time spent on rivers: waking up in camp, tending to an agreed-upon, well-structured pace that got everyone fed and camp packed so that we could push off into the flow for the day, before finally arriving at another camp farther along, where we would unload, make camp again, eat, and enjoy the spaciousness of evening before retiring to our sleeping pads. Our van, especially when traveling with lifts and shower-chairs, needs to be packed just so, just like a well- rigged boat, before passengers load in to traverse the winding course of whatever highways unfurl in front of us that day.

Last year in August Cyrus and I were rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. He even captained his own boat for a portion of the trip and crushed class 7 whitewater. While on the river, a friend would sing a song inspired possibly by an open-ended John O’Donohue quote:

“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding....” This is how it is for me. Just like this quote.

Our life is contained within the structure of canyon walls, and the river of our life has a definite course, yet however well-mapped it may appear, we never quite know the beauty that awaits us around the next bend. But night after night we settle into camp, exhausted by the fullness of our days, and in joyful recognition of how blessed our lives still our. Cyrus knows it.

 Anyway, we rolled into Leadville and met a crew of athletes that had been injured over the years. The High Fives community in particular includes only athletes that were injured while participating in extreme outdoor sports. Throwing a backflip in the shallow, early season snow in the back-country outside of Silverton earned Cyrus a spot in this amazing club that no-one really wants to join. And the others there, who were years further down the road with their injuries, turned in their chairs to greet this young 17-year old who they didn’t quite expect to make it to the event. Invitations are one thing for a quadriplegic. Packing a van, making it to 10,000 feet, sleeping in cheap hotel rooms, and dressing to endure monsoon season at elevation is quite another. When Cyrus rolled in after a break in the clouds had opened up blue sky, he found himself greeted by a community that knew how important it was to include him, they themselves having been there. I strolled off to allow Chela to play with another puppy tied to a long leash from the bumper of a truck, while Cyrus was socialized into a potent new experience of community.

One young man in particular was so valuable for Cyrus to connect with. Nearly everyone at the event had fully functioning hands, arms and shoulders, enabling them to pop wheelies and balance their chairs with their front casters off the ground, rolling wherever they needed to go on the graveled lot, graceful, playful paraplegics. Only one other man struggled to push himself around, his caster lifted by a free-wheel accessory device attached to his chair. With crippled hands, he, like Cyrus, engaged whatever creative use his remaining muscle groups could employ to depress his palms downward upon the rims of his wheels, incrementally making his may up the slightly sloped dirt and gravel ground. With spinal cord injuries, it is best not to compare injuries. Folks whose injury occurred slightly lower may have tricep function. Even lower and maybe they have retained wrist flexion, or some finger movement after their injury. Higher into the upper cervical region, people lose even more, sometimes having to control big power wheelchairs with their mouths. Triceps, which Cyrus lacks, are a big deal, helping paraplegics and those quadriplegics still blessed to have them with the ability to transfer themselves or push a chair. One inspirational figure, Trevor Kennison, who broke his mid-back in a snowboarding accident, was there and had popped himself out of his wheelchair and easily into a camp chair with the help of those triceps. He had set his legs up on his wheelchair like a too familiar footrest and easily used his functioning-hands to remove his sunglasses and shine a bright smile at Cyrus. Trevor was recently spotlighted at this years X-Games for hitting the Big Air Jump in his sit-ski. This afternoon he looked totally normal, posted up in a camp chair with his feet up, talking happily to two vibrant, able-bodied, young women, all slightly disheveled after a few unwashed nights of camping. Cyrus was instantly jealous of Trevor’s ability to look completely uninjured, sitting out of his chair, even if only for a moment.

But it was Trim Burr who was the real jewel for him. A C5 incomplete quadriplegic who had injured himself in the most random of ski falls, double ejecting himself into a whole new world that awaited him upon breaking his neck. He was nearly 10 years out from injury now and had created an organization called Back-to-Dirt that got quadriplegics out into the back-country in 4-wheel off-road vehicles known as Can-Am Mavericks. We had arrived late in the day Thursday, not expecting to get out of Cyrus’ chair. After a full afternoon of socializing, Tim told us to be there the next morning as early as possible, so that Cyrus could get out and have some fun before the afternoon monsoons swept in again.  He was the one, who like Cyrus, struggled harder to get himself around.

Right when we arrived on Friday morning, Tim shouted out to us. Immediately his friend Dylan called us over to look over the off-road machine. He showed us how it had been adapted with hand-controls so that quadriplegics could drive.

“You have a drivers license, right?”

“Yes.”

“It no longer a provisional license, is it? You can drive with passengers?” Cyrus nodded.

And then after a few more pointers, Dylan single-handedly slung Cyrus’ lanky body over his shoulder and plopped him in the drivers seat. 20 minutes later, Cyrus was ripping down a dirt road at 35 mph, splashing though puddles and getting drenches by the absence of a windshield, with Dylan hollering out in delight from shotgun and I video tapping from the backseat.

Tim had tried to get back to sit skiing but found that without triceps, it was super challenging. “In my opinion, these off-road vehicles are the best quad-adapted sport out there. You can go just as hard as an able-bodied driver.”

Cyrus was psyched after getting out from behind the wheel, his first time driving since the accident.

The remainder of the afternoon was congratulatory for him, everyone celebrating his unexpected accomplishments and including him closer in the circle. I enjoyed their final moments together, sharing stories and perspectives told from wheelchairs.

The ride home was filled with an existential satisfaction.

And by dark, we had made it home, unpacked the raft, made camp, shared dinner and settled in for another episode of Breaking Bad.