Still remembering

 Continuing the theme of memory, I had a dream last night that has stuck with me all day.  I don't remember the first part or the exact setting of the dream, but there was a threatening aspect to the situation. I was on a train with our second son, only he was a toddler, maybe 2 or 3. Old enough to talk, young enough to be held. At first we were playing some game where children were getting lost, so I grabbed my son and got on the train to go somewhere to rest and hide.  And he did rest - his little body relaxed into dreams. As I held his sleeping body, his face brightened into a smile. It was one of those sweet moments of total trust and relaxation when a baby knows he's safe with his mother, even though his mother knows she can't keep him completely safe.

In the dream, I knew I was dreaming, and I knew he was really grown up.  So even in the dream, I knew I should savor this moment, when I could love and hold him because he was small again. It was like I was able to time travel because I knew he would grow up fine, and I could hold him freely, almost with more love because I no longer worried about raising him. The dream was a gift; it was so realistic. It was a moment to forgive myself for the times I didn't sit down and hold my older babies without worry of what comes next. This may be what being a grandmother is like. 

I woke up slowly, relishing the feeling of his little boy body, the lightness and flexibility of his arms, the small of his head, the softness, etc.  And then I booked a trip to visit our son!

Saying Goodbye

A couple of nights ago, spears of lightning cancelled the swim team pool party, but not the pizza eating. They also cancelled my husband's flight home from North Carolina, where he had traveled for his uncle's funeral. A good thrumming thunderstorm dumped buckets of water, but it also prevented hundreds of travelers from returning home that night, including my husband.  But despite the travel interruption, attending the funeral was worthwhile and meaningful for him. 

This uncle, a professional piano tuner, teacher and lounge singer, sang at our wedding. He was jovial and talented, and played "Piano Man" not just at our reception, but ever since played it at every niece's and nephew's wedding. (Although, ours was the only one where he sang "Danny Boy" for my husband's grandmother.) Family gatherings found him on a bench in front of a keyboard, and he enlivened every event with his playing and singing - not just as a private concert, but as a way of leading the family in communal song together. His own sons remained unmarried and estranged from each other, a sad coda to the life of a well-loved man.

He was the first of eight siblings in my mother-law's family to pass away, even through the pandemic. There may likely be another funeral before one of the next generation gets married. In this uncle's obituary, his nieces and nephews were counted among his descendants, a testimony to the sense of kinship this uncle brought to everyone in the family. Our parent's generation kept those cousins close, but as they pass on, we will lose not only those loved ones, the organizers of family events, but the bonds between cousins will weaken as collateral. 

Now that he is gone, the family gatherings will be not just quieter, but also rarer.  Gatherings are just not as fun without the fun uncle. All of the siblings gathered for the funeral must have wondered who will be next?  Really it's miraculous they all have survived Covid. Their father died in his fifties of a heart attack. They all have surpassed him.

Now my husband and I are nearing that age. I have been feeling very mortal lately. Not just tired, but spent. I have another basal cell carcinoma - nothing to worry about, except another scar, another reminder to stay out of the sun, another reminder than my skin is wearing out, like the rest of my body.

It is not just the physical aspects of aging, but the saying good-bye. This month, our oldest daughter turns 20 and our fifth son turns 18. We'll only have two at home next year. After all these years of wondering when I might next have a quiet moment - well, now I'll have plenty. It's both exciting and terrifying. Now they are good company, good help, good people, but they are also excited to leave us behind. They are ready "to start their real lives" - a  phrase that I said to my parents in my horrible teenage years when they dropped me off for college.  My parents told them that story, and they love to tease me with it, as much as they actually mean it in some small corner of their hearts.

I still sometimes catch myself waiting for that real life to begin. For many years I felt like the real life would start when we settled down in a house of our own, or when the kids started school, even as I knew life was happening every hour. I catch myself planning the next thing before the present thing is over, partly out of necessity, partly out of habit, partly out of a desperate attempt to do it all. I was looking at photos for a graduation slide show and for our daughter's sixteenth birthday, and the quickness of time hit me again. I can't say I wasn't warned - the grandmas at the churches and parks and groceries all told me those days would go by fast. And so they did. They were full and happy for the most part, and the hard days we survived, and nothing makes me happier than listening to my big kids laugh about those times or commiserate together. 

And now some of the people who made those days memorable, like my husband's uncle, are slipping out of the world into the next, which is perhaps the real life after all. 

Heat Wave

 Well, I knew it was going to be hot here in Texas, but I didn't expect it to be 100 degrees every day for most of June. The neighbors keep telling me this heat is unusual for this time of year. Of course, now it is July and 100 degree temps are pretty common, so now I am no longer checking the weather app to see if it might cool down or rain in the near future. I figure the weather will be similar until mid September. 

The heat hasn't kept us from getting outside, however, Yesterday, to celebrate the Fourth we gathered with some friends from Guam. They now have several more children, and we have several fewer at home. The pool got a few hours of use, and the kids played a few games of cornhole. We took a break inside to eat, feasting on smoked meats, potato salad, cole slaw, beans, and fruit and brownies and sugar cookies, the usual picnic food, and then played pool, before heading outside just before sunset to light sparklers and set off a few noisemakers and fountains that my husband picked up at one of those roadside fireworks stands.  He was tempted to pick up some Texas-sized rockets, but held off, knowing full well how I'd feel about them. 

And of course, the city had plenty of big fireworks to mark the event. We walked down to the public high school to watch them so we didn't have to drive and fight traffic. This wasn't the best vantage point for viewing, but plenty of people had the same idea, including the Kona Ice guy, so we weren't alone in our search for simplicity.  

The city's fireworks were fine, but I have to admit, we couldn't help comparing it to the celebrations we experienced in Coronado, which were pretty spectacular. Our daughter was in tears after Mass Sunday when she learned that there would be no parade. And she was bored most of the morning while we were cooking and cleaning. I missed having family around, and my husband made the mistake of checking social media and reading about a protest of July Fourth festivities in response to the Dobbs decision.  The day just felt subdued compared to past celebrations. 

We may have still be recovering from the day before, when we celebrated the births of our two July babies. Our oldest daughter turned 20 on the third, but she is spending the rest of the summer in San Diego, so we had to settle for a phone call and being a part of her birthday party by giving her our credit card to buy a cake to share with her friends.  

Then that evening we were able to pull off a little surprise party for our son turning 18 next weekend.  Our middle daughter helped coordinate with friends, who came over and decorated while he was at the gym. The best ruse was one of the friends told our son that he couldn't go to the gym with him because he had to go to a "Celebration of life"!  That same friend gifted our son with his own Lego minifigure with extra long legs. Pretty cute. High schoolers are funny. 

But then I read this morning of the shooting at the Highland Park parade outside of Chicago. That neighborhood was not too far from where we used to live years ago in a town that also had a great Fourth of July parade.  I can't image the trauma.  Where does the violence end?

For consolation here are a few snapshots from our recent celebrations:

Scenes from the life of our July 3rd baby. 

A quick stop at the county park to look for minnows and turtles just for something to do while waiting for friends. 

Luxury sparklers. Stand back!

A new flag.

Pool time fun

Summer sun, graduates, and road trips

Midsummer night's eve is still a week away, and the kids have only been out of school a week, but already it feels that it has been summer for months. Maybe that is because it has been 104 degrees for the past two weeks, with the 10 day forecast on the weather app calling for temps over a 100 for the forecastable future. Or maybe because we just returned from a 3000 mile road trip. Our brand new car is already 2000 miles past due for its 5000 mile check up.

Time for an update:
The biggest news: Our fourth son/fifth child graduated from high school three weeks after his brother graduated from college. After having to move his senior year, the high schooler adjusted well and told his uncle who came for the graduation that even though he thought the administration of his school is corrupt (which means something different to teens - like they enforce uniform regulations irregularly and apparently ask for hall passes unfairly and at times reprimand students for being wild in the parking lots), he had formed stronger friendships and learned more in his classes. That is some consolation after the heartache that accompanied this move. He'll be following in his older brothers' footsteps in attending Notre Dame. I have to admit we were all a little surprised when he was admitted, but he worked hard this year.  Notre Dame was his dream school for years, but when the time came to make a decision once we had all the financial aid information in hand from the various schools he had applied to, he almost turned it down. There were two smaller Division 3 schools that were recruiting him to play football, and he had a hard time saying no to them. Eventually, he decided that since he would probably have to redshirt his freshman year because of his ACL surgery, he'd start at ND. It would be much easier to transfer from ND to one of these two schools if he decides he isn't happy there than the other way around. And financially, our part of the bill was about the same at all the schools. 

The third son's graduation was a festive affair at Notre Dame, although we didn't plan a party for either son. The commencement address was delivered by the archparch of the Ukrainian Catholic church in America, Boris Gudziak. When this was announced, I was ready for a sober speech, but he was actually quite animated and began his speech by revealing that he had always wanted to pass a football on the ND field, so he pulled out a football that he spiraled out to the crowd, where it was caught by my son's good friend from San Diego. A great beginning to a speech that touched on the meaning of education as learning to see with the heart. He appealed to the high spirits of the Ukrainian people in the face of great odds, but he didn't bring down the spirits of the graduates by dwelling on the war, that continues to be waged with both blood and money. His speech was followed by the Laetare medal winner, Sharon LaVigne, who has fought for environmental justice in her Louisiana community and inspired other campaigns around the country. She inspired everyone with her David vs. Goliath story, but another highlight of the graduation ceremony was the brief speech given by Jerome Bettis, who returned to ND to finish his final semester of school after he left in 1994 to play for the NFL. He returned not for any financial gain, but to witness to the power of education to his children and to fulfill his promise to his mother. He had a press crew following him, but his words seemed heartfelt - and that theme of seeing with the eyes of the heart seemed to echo throughout all of the speeches of the day. This idea that education is for developing empathy and compassion and growing in virtues of faith, hope, and charity resonated with me, even though I know many graduates originally came to Notre Dame to get a high paying job and to watch a lot of football. 

As I mentioned in a post back in May, our third son is going to work at the farm in the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound where his father and I honeymooned, which is run by Benedictine nuns. He did get accepted into the English Language program run by the Spanish embassy, so he will head to somewhere in Andalusia in October. My secret hope is to visit him in Spain next Spring and allow myself time to hike part of the Camino de Santiago. He has been very helpful around the house - cooking, doing laundry and dishes, driving his siblings around, washing windows, painting some watercolors of the state birds and state flowers of where we have lived for our large blank stairwell wall - in order to supplement his dwindling checking account which has no source of income for the foreseeable future. He'll get a stipend in Spain, but has to cover his own living expenses, so it is unlikely to go far. He is looking into possibilities for marketing his senior thesis - he designed a type font based on the handwriting of John Keats - but I'm not sure how that is going. 

So even though two more sons are entering new, more independent phases of their lives, I still feel very much their mother, although the house will certainly be quieter in a matter of weeks.

To cap off the graduation season, we loaded up in the car to go to our niece's graduation in Ventura, where we used to live. Actually, four of the family flew - we bought those tickets early when my brother-in-law invited us out, but then we all decided to go. Since the airfare had increased exponentially, and one daughter is a fearful flier, the two younger girls and I drove out - this gave us the opportunity of stopping to see our oldest and his wife in Arizona, whom we hadn't seen since Christmas since their Easter plans fell through. They are in the process of moving, so our next visit is undetermined, which made the decision to drive 3000 miles easier to make. 

Our niece graduated from a hippie school in Ojai - the students wore caps and gowns, but only some wore shoes. The school has a beautiful campus with round cypress buildings, lots of live oaks, and meadows full of wildflowers. Stumps set in circles attested to the frequent practice of holding class outside. Each student in the class of 16 delivered a speech; our niece's was by far the best - no familial bias at work. I was impressed by the willingness of these students to stand up and share the ways they had stretched and grown. A good number of the students described difficulties they had with learning online for a year, or changing schools, or making friends, or discovering themselves, and all of them thanked their families, teachers, and friends, for "literally saving" them, but our niece read a letter she had written to herself as a first year and then wrote back to herself. It was lighthearted and funny, a notable juxtaposition to the vulnerabilities shared by her classmates (she thanked people, too).   

After the ceremony, we had a fabulous lunch at a famous hotel and then capped off the day with a family beach volleyball tournament. My mother-in-law and one other set of cousins had also come to the graduation and some of our cousins' friends also came to celebrate. It was a fun evening, followed the next day with a celebration of our daughter's sixteenth birthday.  More cake, a shopping trip, a teenager group trip to an escape room, followed by an enchilada dinner. I think she had a good day, even though another reason we had made the trip was because she was involved in a drama with friends back home, so she was wanting a change of scenery. 

The weekend was completed with a trip back down to our old neighborhood, where we dropped off our older daughter for the summer. She never found a great job here near us, so she made arrangements to stay with some friends and housesit for some other friends and work for her past employer, the recreation center. I was both saddened and heartened by this. Saddened, because she really didn't want to spend the summer with us in Texas where she has no friends. No surprise, really. But heartened because she made the arrangements herself and is planning to finance the summer herself. A step towards independence. She also has an online internship that is unpaid that will plump her resume up a bit. I was happy to have her home from Germany for over a month before she headed back out to California, and now I have another excuse for going back to see friends, although I'm beginning to fear they may get tired of me showing up on their doorstep! To avoid burnout, and since I had two of the boys with me because their return flights got cancelled and rescheduled, I went ahead a rented a room at the Navy Lodge on the beach. I had romantic notions of falling to sleep listening to the ocean waves, but I was so exhausted by the time I lay down, and aided by melatonin (which has been a real boon lately because I have this midlife problem sleeping), I had one of the best nights sleeping I'd had in ages. Maybe it was the distant sound of waves lulling me...

So a busy two weeks. Many miles covered. Lots of quality family time with both the immediate family, including our married son and daughter-in-law, whom we visited both going and returning, and extended family. Time to think and pray while driving. We were only gone five days, but it felt like a month passed.  I hate driving around town in stop and go traffic, but I don't mind the open road, hours of daydreaming past cacti and interesting rock formations. We listened to lots of Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves on the way out, and on the way home, I was drawn into Ann Patchett's book of essays This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, which is mostly about her writing life, although I think my favorite essay was about her relationship with her father when she tries out for the LAPD Police Academy. 

Over the next couple of weeks we will settle into summer. Looking forward to some boredom. 

Photos of the graduates: 

  

College graduation

 

An alumni club photo booth

The graduate and I road tripped back, with a stop to see a new baby nephew and stops to see both sets of grandparents.

 

Honey locusts in bloom. The bees were ecstatic.

A field trip to a farm with chicks and llamas.

Swim team in season! A trip to the Charles Umlauf Sculpture Garden

And a stop at the Austin Botanic Garden

  

And a stop at the Harry Ransom Center to see a Gutenberg Bible and first edition of Ulysses 

High school graduation - Don't notice that I wore the same dress

 

First road trip in our new car - it is so compassionate

Sibling time!

Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, family, fun - all the usual characteristics of summer vacation. 

On courage

 The funerals have begun in Uvalde. I'm afraid I had my numbers wrong in that last post. It seemed like each time I looked at the news the number of children who were gunned down increased.  And now this horrible news about the policemen who stood outside the door. I can't imagine how guilty they must feel. Did they really think no lives were at risk when a gunman had barricaded himself in the room? Did they not hear shots? Have they not heard theses stories before? 

I used to know someone who was a 911 operator. She is still my friend on Facebook, and she has sometimes posted about the difficulty of responding to so much trauma.  So many emergencies. Not often does she get a call, let alone multiple calls, from children pleading desperately for help. I know she would have tried valiantly to get help. How did the message not get to the men outside the door in that 45 minutes to an hour? 

And yet before I condemn them, what would I have done? Bravely smashed in the door? Broken in and put my own life on the line to save the children? I like to think that I would have thrown myself at the gunman, like the two teachers who died, but I may have cowered behind locked doors. I don't like conflict, let alone gunfights. I used to take on the bigger kids on the soccer field, but that doesn't mean I have the courage to face down a real criminal. I have had dreams about saving my children from drowning and from wildfires and from auto accidents, but I haven't dreamed of saving them from an active shooter. Perhaps that is the next drill to dream up. 

A day of mourning

My day started out well. It's my 49th birthday. What a strange and unlikely thing! I don't feel a day over, oh, maybe 33 -- other than the persistent pain in my feet and the fact that I don't recognize myself in the mirror or photographs sometimes. Who is that person with gray hair and wrinkles? I remember feeling quite sad to leave my thirties behind when I was turning 40. I feel equally sorry to not be 40 something for much longer, but the difference between 40 something and 50 something seems much smaller that between 30 something and 40 something. A 30 year old could still be considered young. I am decidedly middle aged, if not on the edge of old. 

The morning began with gifts and a walk with friends and my daughter during which we talked about what to do with the gift of another year of life? 

My daughter, who is my walking partner once again now that she is home from college, thinks I should try to run another marathon since I did one in my 20s and one in my 30s.  I would like to do more writing, I say every year.  I also say every year that I would like to organize photos and make photo books.  I'd like to make another trip to CA, a trip to NC and to MI to see cousins, and a trip to Boston to see our second son and then a little jaunt up to Maine to meet his girlfriend's parents. I'd like to go backpacking again. 

I have no shortage of things I'd like to do. And I feel blessed that I will get to do many of those things, unlike the 19 children and their teacher who died today, or the 13 who were murdered last week in New York.  I didn't hear the news about today's tragedy until midday, but once I became aware of the catastrophe, the celebratory nature of the day was over. I can't even imagine the mourning that must be happening in Uvalde, a town that is only three hours away. Our 15 year old came home from school nervous. She saw some statistic that there have been 27 school shootings in 2022. That's a number that is difficult to fathom, impossible to explain. Far too many people who won't have the opportunity to celebrate the gift of another year or life. 

The death of child is tragic; the death of multiple children is unconscionable. May God welcome them to Heaven, console their families, have mercy on all, and send healing to the broken hearted everywhere.

Horse and garden notes

I started writing this post two weeks ago and never finished, so it's a bit behind the times, but then, so am I!

I haven't reviewed any books lately, but I have read some good ones. The most emotional reading lately was a reread of Marguerite Henry's classic Misty of Chincoteague. I think I had already read it to the 8 year old, but she doesn't remember. It's the fourth or fifth time for me - Here's an old post from 2013 about reading it to my 4th grader - which would have been my college daughter. The story follows two young kids who help with the Chincoteague Island pony penning.  Paul and Maureen have their hearts set on trapping and buying the wild pony Phantom, but they get in the bargain her new foal Misty. Since Misty is too little to be separated for her mother, so Phantom lets herself be corralled. The children do gentle both horses, and the next year they win the race.  But they realize they that Phantom will never really belong to them - she will always be a wild thing.  Again I broke down into tears the moment Paul decides to let the Phantom, his wild pony, go. Assateague, the unsettled, wild island is always calling her home, as is the Pied Piper, her stallion. Paul and Maureen accomplished what they desired - they were able to ride the Phantom in the Pony Penning race, and the Phantom stayed to raise her colt, but her spirit was never broken.  Reading it this time, I again wondered why the title is Misty because the colt plays a very secondary role to the Phantom. Is it to divert young children's attention away from the difficult parts of the story? The entrapment of a wild thing vs. the quality of love that calls us to set something we love free? And yet how many children yearn to possess a wild pet - a baby squirrel, a monkey, a fawn? It's a desire that has launched a thousand books.  

I need to find photos to show the 8 yr old of our pilgrimage to Assateague and Chincoteague when our oldest boys were small. I also want to show her the running of the Kentucky Derby - Amazing! Hats off to the underdog winner and the jockey who guided her. Youtube led me to this similarly impressive video of Secretariat winning the Triple Crown by winning at Belmont in 1973 by 31 lengths - the year I was born. His record still stands. Incredible. 

I only saw the video because a horse loving friend shared it on Facebook. We were at the races ourselves today - the Texas private schools state meet. Our second daughter was a part of the first place 4x400 meter relay team. She also ran in the 4 x 200 meter team which placed 5th. I'm a little unhappy about that - not that 5th place in the state meet is something to be disappointed about, but because in the regional meet, the 4x200 took place immediately prior to the open 400m, which she also ran. But she didn't qualify in that race because she got confused about the finish line and slowed up early. The track was a 440 track, and had two solid lines on the track. If she weren't already tired from running the 4x200, she would have done better. It was also a hot hot day and she didn't eat and drink enough. She should have placed 2nd or 3rd in that race in the regional and 3rd or 4th in the state meet, but that's the heartbreak of athletics. I heard another girl crying under the bleachers after she went out in the pole vault about how she had to go to state. But she went out early and didn't qualify. Maybe a future scholarship was lost in an unlucky moment. Someone else might say that if you put in the practice time there are no unlucky moments, but that is a topic for another time. 

Other books I have been reading are about gardens - I've planted some annuals (petunias, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, some hanging baskets with petunias and ferns) and some perennials - lavender, an azalea, black-eyed Susans, Shasta daisies (which aren't looking very good), and transplanted some hostas and sedum from my mom's house. They are looking pretty well rooted. This past weekend, my mother-in-law sent me home with some hostas and some kind of ground cover that we thinned for her, but those were further along when we dug them up, and they are looking a bit floppy instead of full. They may not survive the summer, which is already in full force with temps over 90 for the past two weeks. This weekend it will cool a bit, but I'm already anticipating the death of the petunias and transplants. We'll see if I can nurse along the vegetables and herbs. I never got raised beds made, but I stuck them among the ornamental shrubbery planted in the existing raised beds around the pool.

Other recent reads -  a couple of best sellers for book club that took a couple hours to finish off after dinner like a tasty dessert- good at the moment, but not nourishing. Beautiful Ruins was about a filmmaker and actress and innkeeper on an Italian island in the 60's. A second plot follows an aspiring director and aspiring screenwriter. The dual plots eventually coincide. I can't say there were many surprises, but twists kept me turning pages and the characters were interesting enough. I also finished The Maid, a light mystery involving a neuro-divergent hotel housekeeper who gets mixed up in a drug-running operation. I didn't quite have the ending figured out in this one, but some outcomes were predictable. It was light and cheerful - not adjectives usually associated with murder mysteries, but the focus of the book was really more about this young woman's ability to live on her own after her grandmother who raised her passed away and about her perspective on human relationships.

More to come on recent developments - a college graduation, a high school graduation approaching, watching Downtown Abbey: A New Era with the girls, etc.