as long as we remember

We have one photograph of all five of us, a selfie taken on the living room rug.  It's printed in black and white and framed in Tolliver's bedroom.  Recently he moved the image from across the room to the table right beside his bed.

Last week, when Tucker brought up her name, Andy asked what he remembered most about her.  Tuck said that she liked applesauce with cinnamon, and that she kept her eyes closed a lot and was usually napping.  

That’s the part that bothers me, that the memory of a sister’s short life wound up colored by the dysfunction of disease.

Sometimes I write down memories for the benefit of my boys, her brothers.  Other times we talk about her together.  Andy reminded Tucker that he used to put the back of his head against hers and press their hair together, how the silent way they spoke taught us to really hear.

When the boys ask questions, we follow each random trail to the fullest conclusion we can.  We try to tell them things they don’t remember or never fully knew, to put words and images to the blurriness of their recollections.  They are fascinated by the idea that she walked around this house, that she talked about shoes and dogs and cheese, that she was alive.

She is more than a sad little ghost caught in a single picture frame.  She is more than a historical event.  She is more than hazy, half-glimpsed visions of red curls and pill bottles, ivory skin and wasted youth.

None of us had the privilege of really knowing her as she grew, but we tell them what we can.  Who knows what might sift through and lodge in the scaffolding of their brains, but they are not too young to understand the currency of memories, how they keep you company.  They learned early on about the clenching muscle of the heart, the way it wants to grasp the ungraspable, preserve the ephemeral.

Of course she is still your sister, we say.  People die, but our relationship with them does not.
She did like cherry yogurt just like you!  Yes, and donuts and pizza too.
That's right, her feet were pointed like a ballerina, we agree, saving symptoms of immobility for another time.
But there was no medicine, we have to remind to Tollie. 

Her story is so filled with horror I wish it were not ours to tell.  It is also a story of adventure, of danger and survival, of grief and loss, of starting fresh, of creating, losing, rebuilding a sense of home, of family, of old friends lost and new friends made, of sibling bonds.  Telling them things they don't remember but which belong to them is like cracking open a space in their self-identity and pouring in the backstory. 
This is where you came from.  This is what we once feared and grieved and how we moved forward.  Her story is your story too, this is who we are.

the days pass

The days pass in microscopic increments.  There are a million small, seemingly inconsequential chances to be patient and generous and kind.
Between blowing on hot food and throwing all the uneaten bites into the trash.
Between clipping fingernails and coupons and flowers for the mantel.
Between scraping lint out of the dryer vent and wiping coffee rings off countertops.
Between folding paper to make it fly and finding the right spot to tickle to trigger a laugh.
Between covering every little crevice with sunscreen and camouflaging dark under eye circles.
Between packing picnics and picking up all the small things on the floor.
Between clicking car seat buckles and grabbing blocks before they're flung.
Between games of hide and seek and trips to the grocery store.
Between boiling macaroni and stringing noodles into necklaces.

In between all of this, I know, are the very best parts, teeth are being lost and crushes are being lit, books are being devoured and dazzlingly slow progress is being made.  I don't want to lose sight of the long game, the one in which each of the tiny times matter, all of the moments do.
I work to center my attention on the very best things, focus energy on stuff that is certain to help us all grow, respond gracefully to whatever occurs, at least most of the time.  It is so cliche, but I am fascinated with the way the days seem so consuming and exhausting and long, but in retrospect, all of it moves fast.  I feel simultaneously delighted and robbed.  And in between all of it, I remind myself that the boys need me for survival, even when I may feel like I just need to be alone to survive.

Olentangy Indian Caverns

as told by Tolliver:
We went deep down inside the earth.  We were looking for bats in the cave but we didn't see any of those.  It was cold and we kept getting dripped on.  The Indians used to hide down there.  We found some of their old teeth.  We founds lots of gems too.  

tackling all the STDs

I was standing at the stove tending bacon when Andy passed through the room asking whether T2 was registered for preschool.  Not yet.  The paperwork may have been due in January?  The day I called about late forms, the lady I apparently needed to speak with was not in.  I put it off.

We repaired a dining room chair that broke when it tipped over under the weight of blanket tent plus boy.
We called the insurance company because we'd been double billed for homeowners.
We traced chalk outlines on the sidewalk.
We went to the pool.
We read all twenty seven books on the front porch.
We mowed the lawn and mopped the floors and wasted time on the internet.
We hung some shit on our bedroom wall, finally.

Tuck first read the new print as "get shirt done." He knew it didn't make sense as soon as he said it out loud.  But then he wanted to know what "shit" meant, and how to use it in a sentence.  We talked about synonyms and explained that shit should never be a first choice word.

So, we had a conversation about showing respect and using imagination to choose interesting words.

We smoked eighteen pounds of brisket.
We took the boys to the state fair.
We took after dinner bike rides.
We laundered all the linens on all the beds.
We watched a movie.
We booked hotels and ordered airline tickets and shipped wedding gifts.
We had family over for tacos.

All of these things mean we are blessed.  Too much food to eat, too much stuff to clean, money to spend on making the walls of our home more interesting.  Chairs to sit around a table, towels to dry after a swim, toys to pick up and shoes to locate and floors to sweep.  Shit to sort out.  Oil change appointments and auditions and lesson plans and a to do list as long as the Shoe.
Considering all the things we want to do - visit the caverns and check out a new park, go to campus for fall pictures and go to the Cowboy for chips and queso, it sometimes feels like not enough time to do what should be done.

But Tolliver is, with two weeks to spare, enrolled in a preschool class.
Our bedroom is a little brighter.
And we do have cooked bacon in the fridge. Because, priorities.

Resources, clockwise from top left:

Clouds watercolor by RoRo

"get shit done" typed and printed at home

Paper Hearts by Ink Dot via Minted

Flowers, another watercolor by RoRo

hummingbird by Sara Shashani via Minted

Confetti by Blair Culwell Staky via Minted

Beatrice by Cari Humphry from ArtPaperGarden on Etsy

about August

It's suddenly a scramble, trying to fit in everything we want summer to be before August is over.
School will start and opportunities to pile together in pajamas in the basement with popcorn and a movie will be slim.  Mornings slow enough to make cinnamon rolls and to sit around the breakfast table will diminish.  Fewer days to spend taking indirect paths and climbing trees and declaring most things non-essential and very few time-sensitive.
When the temperature tops ninety we tend to shift attitudes from "we shouldn't" to "why shouldn't we," inching up a few notches on the lazy/permissive/flexible scale.  It's about time to start dialing that back down.  But first, a brother campout.

This time of year there are so many folks trying to describe to the world that bittersweet flavor of growing kids.  The way time is moving too quickly and legs are getting too long, and yet how lucky are we to wake up to another sunrise.

There's still so much to savor, days at the pool and a generally carefree schedule, the way they show love to each other and make each other laugh.  They've had so much together time I barely know where one boy begins and the other ends.  So much together time that they drive each other a little crazy.  Sibling arguments and sweaty walks to the library and all sorts of other summery things can make days pass slowly and the season feel interminable, even when August reminds us that it's not.  

It feels easier to make concessions to the next season while still staring at their faces as they sleep, while they are completely here and not already half gone.

somewhere between a wish and a season

You know the way summer can taste like every single dream you ever had, all come true at once?

The way corn and melon and grilled meat remind you of happy times, the way Fritos and Jolly Ranchers take you back to rest periods on the pool lawn, the way fresh berries taste exactly like a warm morning hike.  The way cold ice cream  cones and generous slices of peach cobbler can make it feel like you've fallen into dreams you hadn't even dreamed of yet.

You know the way summer can look like some kind of fantasy you forgot to imagine entirely?

The way your kids pile in the hammock together and plan the future.  The way they snuggle close to share a book, sticky and smelling like sunscreen and grass.  The way the yard is littered with wet towels and abandoned scooters, squirt guns and excavation kits and at least eighteen kinds of balls.

You know the way summer can feel a lot like all your wildest wishes, wonderfully outrageous and suddenly very real?

The way fireflies floating upward, little points of light amid tall blades of grass, make time - even bedtime - obsolete.  The way the sky, a wavering sheet of blue, changes, clouds rolling in fast, issuing just enough rain drops to remind everyone who's boss.  The way parental perspective can change lightening quick too, can alternate between tired and energized.

You know the way the door to even more possibilities opens again every morning, the way there's always at least a thin slice of sunshine to step into?

Until tomorrow.

There is something about him right now, today, that makes it hurt a little bit to breathe.
I mean, I am not sad that my baby is growing up.  God, I’m glad he is.
But those freckles.  Those toes.  The cheeks and the chin and the filthy fingernails.
His eyes.  The way he holds his glass.  The way he says the word wish.
The way he shows numbers with his fingers.  The way he pees on everything perpendicular, like a dog.  The way crawls onto my lap mike mercury, melts into whatever space there is.
His soft skin.  All of him.  Every inch.
This is it.
Until tomorrow.