Remember how it felt to sink both hands, palms down, fingers spread, into fresh wet sand on the beach? Or the exhilaration of rolling down a steep, grassy hill?

Remember how it felt to be so close to the sky, you’re sure that you can reach the clouds in just one swing at a time?

It’s easy. Close your eyes. Like a pendulum, first you’re being pulled backward and away from the ground, then suddenly you’re shooting forward and the ground is thrown back at you before it slides quickly out of your vision to make way for the sky: pale blue and puffy clouds, so close you can’t help but reach your hand out.

Meanwhile that feeling in the pit of your stomach pulls forth all the squeals and giggles we miss in adulthood.

This is play, in its most raw form.

It’s a rite of passage. It’s the “work” of childhood.

And yet, not all children have access to their neighborhood swing set. Not all children can play like this outside their own backyard.

For one Bainbridge Island family this was the case.

By the time he was 1 year old, Owen Marshall was diagnosed with quad-spastic cerebral palsy, cortical visual impairment and epilepsy. He had little voluntary control over his extremities and due to abnormalities in his brain, had reduced vision.

“We spent a lot of time at Seattle Children’s Hospital the first year of his life,” said Stacy Marshall, his mother.

“He had a very difficult time keeping food down because of all those disabilities, so he had a feeding tube placed when he was about 4 months,” she recalled.

For several months in that first year, tiny Owen was also given injections to try to control more than 120 seizures a day.

As he got older, play time for Owen didn’t mean playing in the mud or rolling down a hill at a neighborhood playground. Instead he spent time in his family’s garden underneath a big rainbow umbrella. He liked the bright colors because they were what he could see best, Marshall explained.

He listened to music and his little brother, Elliot, rolled him in his wheelchair around the house to dance.

He had a net swing at home, too. Like most kids, Owen loved it.

Owen passed away five months ago, at the age of 6.

With his disabilities, he never had the chance to play with his feet sunk low in the grass, or to kick up sand with other kids at the playground.

For other children like him on Bainbridge Island and across Kitsap County, though, that exclusion will soon change.

“A few days after Owen passed, we had friends come to us,” Marshall said.

“They said people want to be able to contribute to a memorial fund, and we know that this is hard to get your mind around, but you should probably start thinking about what you would like that to look like.”

It took no time for her and her husband, Kelsey Marshall, to decide what memorial fund they wanted to start: an inclusive playground in Owen’s name.

“I knew from the perspective of a parent how I wished that we had access,” Marshall said.

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UPDATE | Owen’s Playground breaks ground

To view a slideshow of the groundbreaking ceremony, click here.