easter reflections, one week later

For the first few days we were in Florida, the weather was cold and windy. By the latter half of the week, it started to warm up and by the time we were due to leave on Friday, the temperature had finally reached the high 70's.  So we did what any irresponsible fun-loving parent who had a two-day drive before them and whose children are due back in school on Monday morning would do.  We scrapped our plans to leave on Friday and instead decided to leave on Saturday.



But by Saturday, the temperature had reached the 80's and my sister, Eileen and her son, Tommy, were planning to fly in that very same night from Michigan - and how could we leave when they were coming in just a few hours?  So we scrapped our plans to leave on Saturday and decided to leave on Sunday.  But we didn't make those plans until Saturday late afternoon, once we'd already said goodbye to Mom and Jim and drove back to our hotel to checkout.

All in all, it was a good thing we decided to stay. Because we forgot to lock our door, the Easter Bunny not only came in to our hotel room and hid eggs while we were sleeping, he also hid eggs all around the hotel pool for the guests to find on Easter morning.



The best part of Easter for me, was watching our children who had done a fair job of finding a large number of eggs around the pool - realize that a lot of the children hadn't found any eggs - so unprovoked, they took every last egg from their baskets and re-hid them so that the younger kids who had no eggs, would have something to find. And on the way out of the hotel, Carolyn took some money that she'd saved up and brought with her on the trip to buy a souvenir, instead decide to put it in a golden egg that she then handed to one of the housekeepers as we were leaving. Every so often, we're handed an exceptionally proud moment in parenting. These were two of them.

Then we drove back to my mom and Jim's place to say SURPRISE to my sister Eileen and my nephew Tom ...



.... and it turns out the Easter Bunny had swung by there, too, and left the children brand new sand pails filled with 50 pounds of candy. I'm not sure how he knew we were coming, but that Easter Bunny sure is a tricky one!



Earlier in the week, my mother had bought hats for the girls, some silk flowers and a glue gun, so they could affix various decorations for a personalized Easter bonnet.  Since my mother's mother, my children's great-grandmother, was a milliner at the turn of the 20th century - this was a fun activity for them to do from a heritage perspective. Carolyn's hat turned out very dignified with a simple bow and flowers...



Whereas Elizabeth glued a dozen plastic eggs to her hat and adorned it with stuffed bunnies and a wind up chick.



It suits her perfectly.

sunrises, sunsets, and moonshadows

When my parents divorced more than 30 years ago, I never thought that my mother would remarry. Mom told me that after having spent the first half of her life caring for people other than herself, she really enjoyed her independence.  When I was around 11-years old, she met a man, Cornelius Keaton, who took her out for a dinner a few times. After their second or third outing, he suggested - in my presence - that they get away for a few days to the Great Smoky Mountains.  That sounded great to me - so I jumped up and said, "Fun! When do we leave?! What should I pack?!"



Well, as it turns out, Cornelius wanted to take my mother to the Great Smoky Mountains ... not my mother and her 11-year old daughter.  Mom wasn't interested in any of that "hanky-panky" so Mr. Keaton got his pink slip.

And that was the end of a potential romance. 



When Pat, Jim's wife of 50+ years died more than a decade ago and my mother and Jim started to spend time together, it made my heart so happy that the two of them had found companionship in one another.  By that point, I'd been living in California for several years and my mother, although surrounded by close friends and her sister, was alone in South Carolina.  But then Jim was there and suddenly, she wasn't alone anymore. She had someone to travel with, to eat dinner with, to sit and talk with, to hold hands with, to care about, and to love.



My mother will turn 80 in July and Jim will turn 90 in December. They'll be celebrating their four-year wedding anniversary this coming September.  Several years ago, Jim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Last year he was placed in hospice, primarily because my mother needed a break during the day. Caring for someone round-the-clock can be exhausting and my mom was at the brink.  Since then, Mom has come to realize that it's easier taking care of Jim in Florida than it is in South Carolina and by all accounts, Jim is doing better in the warmer climate.  He is able to get around on his own and is the same jovial, welcoming - albeit sometimes forgetful - man that I've known and loved for so many years. My mom is crazy about him (sometimes crazy frustrated) and he's crazy about her, usually serenading his bride with love songs throughout the day.

Companionship is so important. Studies have shown, time and time again, that people who have someone to share their life with are happier and tend to live longer.

Of course Jim's not my father and I don't treat him as such. But I do honor and genuinely respect him as the kind and gentle man who is my mother's husband.  I'm convinced that one of the keys to my mother and Jim's success and happiness, is that each of them respects the relationships that they've had with others before their union. Jim has a healthy relationship with his friends and children, independent of my mother; just as my mother has a healthy relationship with her friends and children, independent of Jim.  From what I can see, they aren't insecure or jealous of any relationships that each other has that doesn't include them.  Instead, they trust one another and are happy in their togetherness. They do not cast any expectations on each other nor those around them. They are living just as The Prophet by Kahil Gibran had prophesied two people bound by marriage should live (my mom read this at our wedding):

... Love one another, but make not a bond of love.  Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.  Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.  Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.  Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone. Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.  Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.  For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.  And stand together, yet not too near together.  For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. 

I'm so thankful that Mom and Jim have each other and they have intentionally and graciously chosen to open their lives to us so that we are able to make joyful memories, together.  Because when it all comes down to it, that's what life is all about. Family. Friends. Happiness. Unconditional Love.



And of course, Happy Hour while watching the sunset.

... he fought the waves and the waves won

Last week at the beach, my highly imaginative five-year-old, Henry, had it in mind that he was going to use his small shovel to defeat the ocean waves.



Here's the story in pictures....



Waves, you come here and I will swat the oxygen molecules out of you. 



And maybe those two hydrogens that are giving me the evil eye.  



Superman? 




Iron Man? 



Spiderman? 



Batman? 



Those weaklings have NOTHING on me. 



Me? I can conquer the ocean! 



With nothing but a plastic shovel... 

And the power of my mind! 

OK, so this one looks a little big ...



But let me grip my shovel a little tighter...



Wait! Wait!  RETREAT! RETREAT!



Little spray!  There's a little spray over here! 



Cue ..... wipeout. 



And ..... this pretty much sums up how Henry spent every day at the beach.

grand connections - then and now

When the babies were seven-months old, my mother flew out to California for a few days to visit with us. While the photo quality of this picture isn't the greatest, I clearly remember the scene when I took it. Very discreetly, I snapped it from the kitchen, using the poor quality zoom lens on my camera.  My mom was holding Carolyn, who had just woken up from her nap, perched on the edge of her crib while they quietly looked at the mobile suspended above Carolyn's crib and quietly laughed together to avoid waking the other two babies. It was an incredibly precious moment:



Because my mother and Jim occupy a two-bedroom apartment during their 4-5 months in Florida each year, Charlie and I have recently been opting to stay in a local hotel whenever we visit. During our trips, we will leave two children at a time, with my mom and Jim so that they have an opportunity to share some special time together, while Charlie and I have an opportunity to share some special time with the two in our company.  For the most part, the children are very good about taking turns. But on this trip, Carolyn never wanted to leave my mother's side so wound up staying over seven of the eight nights we were in town at my Mom and Jimbo's place.

Considering Carolyn is our most introverted child, I think it's wonderful how connected she is to my extroverted mother who is on a first name basis with every resident in her 12-story building.  Now I should probably interject here that BECAUSE my mother knows everyone that lives in her building (and the buildings on either side of her building, for that  matter), she happened to meet a woman who lives in Massachusetts. And within 30 seconds of meeting this woman, my mother had derived that this woman's husband - is the coach for my first cousin Kathy's daughter, Brenna's soccer team. And once they made the connection that Carolyn was Brenna's distant cousin AND the namesake for Brenna's grandmother (my sweet Aunt Carolyn) everyone suddenly went wild over the family resemblance. Because apparently my beautiful dark haired, dazzling blue-eyed, freckled faced Carolyn looks just like her cousin, Brenna.

(Colemans and Holohans, you'll need to weigh in on this because I've never met Brenna but I can only imagine that she must be adorable.)



Last week, I took this picture, again from the kitchen, using the slightly better quality zoom lens on my camera.  As I saw Carolyn and my mother quietly talking on the patio, I was overcome with a feeling of intense gratitude that my children really know my mother - and that my mother really knows them:



I was also overcome with intense wonder that my Mom might possibly be wearing the very same sunglasses (in the same position) in both photos spaced almost eight years apart.

water aerobics with the ladies

The thing about my mother ... is that she knows everyone. 



She knows everyone's name and their spouse's name and if they have children - their children's (and grandchildren's) names. Mom knows where they live and what they did (or do) for a living and chances are, my mother has invited them to play a game of cards with her and Jim. I don't know how she does this - but my mother connects with people on a level that I can't even comprehend.  For as much as I like to talk (or write and write and write), I'm an introvert and hardly ever answer the phone at our house and will usually (if not always) hide when people ring the doorbell. I'm not sure if that makes me an introvert or a freak. The jury's still out...



But my mother?  She would never run away from a ringing phone or doorbell. She embraces people. All people. Young and old. Black and white and every color in between. For example, riding up in the elevator with a perfect stranger from the lobby to the 6th floor, my mother will make small talk that will be so warm and engaging, the stranger will probably get off the elevator and hang around and chat for another 20 minutes before coming over to dinner that night. Or when I took my mother on a business trip to Palm Springs 12 years ago, she befriended a passenger on the bus that she then toured the town with for the next three days. I think they still exchange Christmas or Hanukkah or Ramadan cards. Whomever they are, my mother befriends all people.



I may have written about it before - anything's possible in the seven years (!!!) that I've been blogging about the adventure that is our life, but once upon a time - when I was in or around fifth grade, I won a bicycle in a raffle drawing at my elementary school.  At the time, I was living with my mother in a one-bedroom apartment and I would lock my highly coveted bicycle to the stairs that led up to our home. One day, I happened to hear something stirring at the bottom of the stairs and looked out our glass door only to see that there was a THIEF trying to STEAL my bicycle.  From what I could gather from my position crouched near the door, they were two shady teenagers that lived up the street and they were doing their best to pick the lock.



Well! You might imagine my fearful fury.

But my mother, who was cooking dinner - wasn't afraid or mad. She simply opened the door and said, "Good evening! How are you kids doing?" Then she calmly walked down the stairs and looked them in the eye and sat down on the steps and talked to them.  For several minutes, she talked to them. She didn't accuse them or say a single derogatory word. She talked with them about their families and what they wanted to be when they grew up and had either of them ever considered a career in medicine?

In the end, my mother invited the kids - who were attempting to steal my bicycle - in to our home and gave them ice cream cones.  And I'm sure those kids took a silent vow to protect our home and it's inhabitants for as long as we lived there.  Because that's the kind of influence my mother has on people.

These are my mother's water aerobic friends from Florida.



Every morning at 11 AM, from November through April, my mother goes to water aerobics and while some of these women are residents that are there every day - others are vacationers passing through. Regardless of who they are or how long they're there, or whether or not they'll ever come back, my mother knows them and their life history.  It's important to note that when water aerobics are in session, the pool is OFF LIMITS to anyone who is not in the class.



But my mother introduced my children to all of these lovely women.  And because all of these women adore my mother - by process of association, they adore her grandchildren - and actually invited the children in to the pool and then took no exception to them snorkeling all around as they practiced their heel lifts and various aquatic squats.



If more people were like my mother, I think there would be more peace on earth.

humans are warm blooded, after all

Does anyone remember how I wrote that I'd like to move north and live on the frozen tundra and I'd be perfectly happy if it snowed everyday because Snow, Snow, I Love Snow? 



That was crazy talk.

Today at work, I was finalizing the write-up for my annual evaluation which summarizes my accomplishments over the past year and any possible geographic moves I'd be willing to make within the company.  Let's just say I'm feeling very grateful for the timing of our vacation this year. Because if our Spring Break had been this week, as opposed to last week, I would have already submitted that annual evaluation to my manager with a request that our family be transferred to Calgary. As in Canada.  And the chances are incredibly high that before we even realized what was happening, our family would have been plucked up and transported even further north by the Fourth of July.



HA! And to think I had a nervous breakdown in 2010? 

After one week visiting with my mother and Jim on the sun-drenched beaches of Florida, and dipping our toes in to the balmy turquoise waters before returning home to frigid and still leaf barren Virginia where it was in the 40's this morning, I'm having a difficult time remembering not only why I'd ever want to live somewhere that it was always cold and snowing ... but why in the world we are here and not say, closer to the beautiful equator?

I'm not alone in that thinking. As we were driving home this past weekend and our kids were perched in the back seats of the car with their dry erase boards practicing math, I pointed to the thermometer and would ask them about the weather.  "When we left Florida it was 86 degrees. Now that we're in Georgia, it is 75 degrees. What's the difference?"  The children would subtract 75 from 86 and tell me that the temperature had fallen by 11 degrees. A short while later, I'd ask, "OK, if Florida was 86 degrees and it's now 68 degrees in South Carolina, what's the difference?"

By the time we reached North Carolina and the temperature was dropping in to the 50's, the children started to cry, "We're going the WRONG way!"

Come on, Spring! We're definitely ready for trees full of flowers and weather that doesn't require coats, mittens and evoke sadness that we can't go outside wearing our brand new Florida flip flops.



Or better yet ... no shoes at all. 

the count down

We're leaving tomorrow on a big road trip.



The kids are incredibly excited, as evidenced by the calendar that Elizabeth created and has been marking off, every day for the past three weeks ...



Everything is so much bigger - so much greater - so much more exciting! through the eyes of a child. And now, multiply that overwhelming excitement times four.

Things have been a bit chaotic as the children try to convince me that they really are big enough to pack their own bags. One day soon, I promise that I will relinquish this great responsibility. But for now, they just need to trust me that on or about day two, they'll be very glad that they have more than a pair of pajamas, three bathing suits and 42 stuffed animals.

punxsutawney phil was a bit off this year

With the spring solstice less than a week away, this is what we woke up to yesterday morning without even having to flush any ice cubes:



Unfortunately, the temperatures weren't quite cold enough so although snow was falling, it wasn't sticking to the roads. Hence, school buses could drive down those roads and as a result, the children cried wee, wee, wee all the way to the bus stop...



While I cried wee, wee, wee all the way to the office. It can be so difficult to be eight-years-old. But I think it might be even more difficult to be 41-years old and want nothing more than another Snow Day.

the path (xiv)

Last year, I wrote a series of posts that explored "the path" that I've been on thus far in my life. For a while now, I've felt moved to add to that collection. Consider these additional installments further soul-searching, history revealing stories that help me better understand the person that I am today and who I hope to become, tomorrow.

***********************************

Growing up, I went to seven different schools before I was in ninth grade. So by the time I reached high school - I didn't feel like I had much stability in the friendship department.  What does it take to be a friend? What does it take to be liked? What does it take to fit in?  Those were just some of the big questions that I was navigating at a critical point in my life: my early teenage years.  

My freshman year, I became fast friends with someone who was a native from the town. A native from a town that was very keen on its natives. It was a southern town that less than 26 years prior had undergone desegregation of the public school systems and held very firmly to its conservative roots.  The new friend was beautiful and athletic and had been very popular in middle school - which was a catalyst for her being very popular in high school. Moreover, her older brother was a senior heart throb on campus.

One Saturday afternoon, we arranged that she'd come over to my house for a few hours. My house being a very cozy two bedroom condominium on the second floor of a complex that I lived in with my mother.  And what I honestly didn't know until the day she was scheduled to visit was that my mother would be gone for the day.  So when she arrived to an adult-less house, the first thing that she did was call her quarterback boyfriend and invite him over. And then, she asked me if we had anything to drink.

I'm sure everyone's thinking that I had more to do with the trouble that we were about to get in to, but let me just state for the record: Up until my senior year in college, I'd always been very naive.  For example, when one of my college roommates asked if I'd like to "join" her and her Citadel boyfriend for the evening, I thought they meant by going out to dinner. When she said, "We were thinking of a ménage à trois..." I thought she meant a FRENCH restaurant.  Cross my heart, that's a true story.  Just ask my mother whom I called in a state of hysteria at 10 PM once I fully understood their intentions.

So there I am in ninth grade, holding a glass of ice water for my new friend and she scoffs at me.

"No, what I was wondering is if you have something to DRINK." She poured out the ice water before asking where my mother kept her "alcohol." My first instinct was to show her to the bottle of alcohol that we'd use for medicinal purposes - before I thought it best that she clarify. She laughed again as she set about opening various cupboards until she found what she was looking for.  My mother was not much of a "drinker" but she did have bottles of Kahlua, vodka and Creme de Menthe for when guests (that were older than 14) might come over.

My friend took all three bottles out of the hutch and poured approximately equal parts, in to her glass. Then she walked back in to the kitchen and opened the fridge. She extracted a Diet RC cola and a jar of maraschino cherries, which she liberally added to her cocktail.  At approximately the same time, her boyfriend arrived and they started to make out. And right about then, a little alarm in my head started to go off:  WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP.

The next hour was a blur. I do remember trying a sip of my friend's special concoction and thinking it was the grossest thing I'd ever consumed. So I ate a graham cracker instead. Meanwhile, my friend inhaled her drink and poured herself another one. Her boyfriend kicked off his shoes and turned on the college football game (Clemson vs. Alabama) on our 12-inch television set.  After her second drink, my friend who was leaning on her boyfriend's chest - dozed off to sleep.

I knew that her father would be coming to pick her up at 5:00 PM and since it was around 3:00 PM, I thought it was fine if she just took a little rest.  What I didn't expect was that less than five minutes in to her nap, she'd projectile vomit all over her boyfriend and my mother's couch.  The boyfriend jumped up, helped me get my friend up, and together we walked her in to my bedroom.

See, I really was naive. Because if I'd had any idea what was happening - or what was about to happen - I would have brought her directly in to the bathroom.  But no. We brought her in to my newly renovated bedroom and had her lay down on my lovely bed with the lovely down comforter.

And of course she threw up. Again. 

All over my bed. And her blond permed hair. And her Forlenza shirt and sweater vest and Guess jeans. I pulled her upright and together, with her boyfriend, we brought her in to the bathroom. Once we sat her limp body on the toilet seat, I decided that a shower was definitely in order.  So we got her in to the bathtub before I shooed the boyfriend out of the room so I could get her clothes off.

(Modesty. There's always time for modesty.)  

I filled up the tub and shampooed and conditioned her hair. I drained the tub and refilled it with clean water. I rinsed her off, dried her off, and dressed her in my clothes until her clothes - that I had put in the washing machine (twice) - could be cleaned.   With her boyfriend's help, I got her out of the tub - dried her hair - brushed her hair - and had her lay down in the bathroom with a bowl.  I then stripped the covers off the couch cushions, stripped my bed, and queued up the next four loads of laundry.  I scrubbed. And scrubbed and scrubbed.  It wasn't long before the house smelled like a combination of PineSol and Creme de Menthe with a subtle hint of vomit.

Her father called. He was on his way over to pick her up because she was supposed to be babysitting the neighbor's children in less than an hour. I re-dressed my friend in her freshly twice washed albeit not completely dried clothes (while ignoring the chunks of maraschino cherries that were still embedded in her sweater vest) and recruited the help of her boyfriend to help me get her down the flight of stairs to the street level. Her boyfriend then kissed her on her inebriated head before hopping in his car and leaving me to await the arrival of her father. Alone.

A few minutes later her dad arrived. So long as I live, I'll never forget watching him pull up in his white two-door BWM 325i. The sunroof was open. The sun was glistening off his short silver hair. I nudged my friend to stand up and making sure she had her sunglasses on - opened the passenger side door and helped her get in to the car.  Her father was chatting about something, so seemed unaware of his daughter's condition. In hindsight - this seems unbelievable to me, but I know for a fact that he pulled out of the parking lot without so much as a question as to why his daughter wasn't talking and acting rather floppy. 

From what I understand, when they arrived back at her house, she opened the car door - got out, took two steps and passed out cold in the driveway. Her parents quickly deciphered that she was two sheets to the wind.  That night, after my mother had arrived home and I fully revealed to her what exactly had happened earlier in the day - my friend's father called to talk with my mother and ask if perhaps she could come down and meet him at his Law Office one afternoon later in the week?  My mother obliged.  And. As it would happen, my friend's father told my mother that his daughter was forbidden from spending time with me in the future.

It was clear that I was a bad influence and since they were an upstanding Christian family in the community, he had a reputation to protect.  He went on to tell my mother that it really was no surprise that this situation had occurred at OUR home considering my mother was a divorced, single parent, and obviously provided no guidance or boundaries for her child (me!).  There's more to the story surrounding the trouble my friend seemed to find herself in throughout high school. But twenty-eight years later, that whole situation still leaves me almost speechless. (I don't think anything could ever leave me completely speechless, but this one definitely comes close.)

on this day in 1928

Give me a HAPPY... 



Give me an 85th... 

Give me a BIRTHDAY... 



Give me a PAPA ALEX... 

What do you get? 



Today - Saint Patrick's Day 2013 - marks Papa Alex's 85th birthday.  When he is not busy traveling, swimming, playing golf, or voraciously reading - from all accounts, he is enjoying a wonderful life with Kathleen.  Those two are living their lives to the fullest and are the poster children of what the golden years should be.



In honor of Papa Alex's birthday and to celebrate the homeland of my great-grandparents who came across the Atlantic from County Cork in the 19th century, we dressed up our dolls (the children and the American Girl variety) in the handmade shamrock outfits that my mother had sent....



We're also trying to make corned beef and cabbage in our crock pot. Emphasis on the word "trying" because as easy as everyone tells us this recipe is (and how delicious everyone else's corned beef and cabbage tastes) for 20 years now Charlie and I have yet to make a corned beef and cabbage dinner that is edible.  I know, I know ... boiling beef.  How difficult can it be?