Ten-year-old Laura and her mother, Lynn, were sitting in front of the family computer, checking out models and prices of bikes. “Let’s pick one out for Dad’s birthday,” Lynn suggested.

As Laura got to the home page of the Bike Rack, a video link to Project Mobility caught her eye. She watched it out of curiosity. The video told how Bike Rack co-owner Hal Honeyman had created an organization to provide specially engineered bikes for people with disabilities. It showed the happy faces of those who were riding them.

“I’m going to buy a bike for one of those kids,” Laura told her mother. Two days later, she showed Lynn a letter she had written asking for donations. “I think it’s amazing for a guy to make bikes for kids who can’t walk,” the letter said. “I saw how happy a boy was when he got one… I’m writing to ask for your help.”

Lynn was surprised by her daughter’s effort, but doubts quickly appeared. The cost of just one of those special bikes could be $4,000. “She could never raise the money,” Lynn thought. But Laura’s letter went out to 75 relatives and friends. Within three days, money began arriving. The girl finally raised more than $12,000.

Last Christmas Eve, Laura wore a Santa hat and delivered the bikes to three of the lucky kids: Ava, Jenny, and Rose. Ever since then she and Ava have ridden bikes together. “When I ride a bike, I like to go fast and feel the light wind,” Laura said. “So does Ava. She rides with her arms, not her feet, but she really flies.”

Laura is determined to keep her campaign going every holiday season. “I want kids to feel the wind on their faces,” she says.

In 2004, when my daughter Becky was ten, she and my husband, Joe, were united in their desire for a dog. As for me, I shared none of their canine lust.

But why, they pleaded. “Because I don’t have time to take care of a dog.” But we’ll do it. “Really? You’re going to walk the dog? Feed the dog? Bathe the dog?” Yes, yes, and yes. “I don’t believe you.” We will. We promise.

They didn’t. From day two (everyone wanted to walk the cute puppy that first day), neither thought to walk the dog. While I was slow to accept that I would be the one to keep track of her shots, to schedule her vet appointments, to feed and clean her, Misty knew this on day one. As she looked up at the three new humans in her life (small, medium, and large), she calculated, “The medium one is the sucker in the pack.”

Quickly, she and I developed something very similar to a Vulcan mind meld (心灵融合). She’d look at me with those sad brown eyes of hers, beam her need, and then wait, trusting I would understand — which, strangely, I almost always did. In no time, she became my feet as I read, and splaying across my stomach as I watched television.

Even so, part of me continued to resent walking duty. Joe and Becky had promised. Not fair, I’d balk (不心甘情愿地做）silently as she and I walked. “Not fair,” I’d loudly remind anyone within earshot upon our return home.

Then one day — January 1, 2007, to be exact — my husband’s doctor uttered an unthinkable word: leukemia (白血病). With that, I spent eight to ten hours a day with Joe in the hospital, doing anything and everything I could to ease his discomfort. During those six months of hospitalizations, Becky, 12 at the time, adjusted to other adults being in the house when she returned from school. My work colleagues adjusted to my taking off at a moment's notice for medical emergencies. Every part of my life changed; no part of my old routine remained.

Save one: Misty still needed walking. At the beginning, when friends offered to take her through her paces, I declined because I knew they had their own households to deal with.

As the months went by, I began to realize that I actually wanted to walk Misty. The walk in the morning before I headed to the hospital was a quiet, peaceful time to gather my thoughts or to just be before the day's medical drama unfolded. The evening walk was a time to shake off the day's upsets and let the worry tracks in my head go to white noise.

When serious illness visits your household, it's not just your daily routine and your assumptions about the future that are no longer familiar. Pretty much everyone you know acts differently.

Not Misty. Take her for a walk, and she had no interest in Joe's blood counts or bone marrow test results. On the street or in the park, she had only one thing on her mind: squirrels! She was so joyous that even on the worst days, she could make me smile. On a daily basis she reminded me that life goes on.

After Joe died in 2009, Misty slept on his pillow.

I'm grateful—to a point. The truth is, after years of balking, I've come to enjoy my walks with Misty. As I watch her chase after a squirrel, throwing her whole being into the here-and-now of an exercise that has never once ended in victory, she reminds me, too, that no matter how harsh the present or unpredictable the future, there's almost always some measure of joy to be extracted from the moment.