Z’s kind of a hard one.

Because his love of animals and trips to the zoo were such big parts of Kade’s childhood, my Z word is zoo. Not terribly creative, but it fits.

I have memories of taking my toddler to the zoo when we lived in Fort Collins, about an hour north of the Denver Zoo. Sometimes we would go with our friends, Mark and Tracy, and Kade’s pal Chloe. Sometimes with another family, Jay and Lucy, and Kade’s buddy Amber. And sometimes with my mom visiting from MI.

The Denver Zoo has special spots in addition to the animals: large metallic animal statues to climb on, an old frontier wagon to get up on and for photo ops, and a place to measure how far you can jump in relation to different animals, like a frog, a hare, and a kangaroo. It was bittersweet to revisit those spots with Asher.

This story is part of Kade Folklore, helped kept alive by my mom: Kade was a good mimic, and would call to the free-roaming peacocks. One time he made his peacock call as we made our way all the way through the parking lot to our car…with a peacock calling back at him, “answering” each call.