Making Room

I wasn’t expecting this.

It’s been nearly a week since we got home from Disney World, and I am still trying to process the emotions that bubbled up during those four magical days (as well as get caught up on laundry and put my house back together). I expected the typical emotions that so often accompany an occasion that should be filled with joy. I knew that even at the happiest place on earth, I would be sad.

Not Eeyore sad.

Just not head over heels happy.

I’ve come to realize that even on the sunniest of days, it’s going to be a bit cloudy in my heart.

So that’s why the feels I was feeling throughout our trip have me a bit perplexed. Yes, I felt that all-too familiar tug as we entered the park that first day. But on the last day of our trip I was overcome with emotion. Ugly cry emotion.

And here’s why (well, my theory anyway):

I spend a great deal of time and energy holding onto my Addie memories. I play them over and over and over again as a way to keep her here. Present. Somehow within reach. I can’t bear the thought of forgetting one single thing about her, so I replay the conversations, the moments (and not just the big ones). Instead, I get lost in the everyday. The way she’d pull her hair up in a ponytail and smoothe out all the bumps. The way her hands would cup the sugar canister as she walked toward the cereal bowl waiting for her on the kitchen table. The way she’d sit on the edge of our living room chair, waiting for the bus to pull up to our house and take her to school. I can’t let one single moment escape me. And so, I spend so much time keeping those memories safe and secure that I have little room for anything else.

As we got lost in the magic of Magic Kingdom, I realized that there were memories to be made here too. In fact, we were making them. And that I wanted to hold onto those memories just as tightly.

Because I realized that these tender moments are just as fleeting.

Life is fleeting.

We may return to Disney someday. We may not. But I know it won't be the same. We will never experience what we did this past week.

A return trip doesn’t promise that my littlest girl will be smitten with princesses. That one of my boys will ask me to hold him tight. That another will reach for my hand. And hold it.

You only get that once.

Back to School

Note: This post was actually written a year ago when I first began teaching at Addie's school. But, I sat on it, fretted about it, and finally decided to roll with it. Especially since these days I've been feeling like I'm right back where I was. Sigh.

It’s no secret that the first week of school can be a bit of a shock to the system.

Gone are the days of spending half the day in your jammies, pinching snacks from the fridge at 10 in the morning, and lounging around the pool, or in my case, lounging on the couch with Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil.

Nope, come 8 a.m., it’s go time.

Go time for me came and went a little over a week ago.

I’m not going to lie, I had a hard time getting out of the gate.

And this had nothing to do with school itself.

It was everything else.

That’s the funny thing about grief (and I hate using that word – funny – because, really, there’s nothing funny about it). People tell you you’re strong and there are times you start to believe it a little bit and then you find yourself pinning all these inspirational messages on Pinterest and really believing it.

And then you crumble.

For me that happened two days before school was supposed to start.

At open house.

Well, after open house, technically.

During open house I stood there smiling, my throat in a vise, as I watched seventh-graders and their parents struggle with locker combinations, empty backpacks filled with school supplies, and move from classroom to classroom meeting this year’s teachers, all the while thinking about the little girl who won’t ever set foot in the seventh-grade hallway.

Let’s face it, two days before school starts isn’t exactly an opportune time to start doubting whether you can do this. Especially since Pinterest had been telling me I could do this all summer long.

Stupid Pinterest.

Stupid me.

Stupid cancer.

And then, school started.

My first go with a group of Addie’s classmates was a little awkward.

It was a five-minute exchange before they checked out books.

I was nervous. So I snapped into teacher mode. I may have even avoided eye contact.

And that felt awful.

Who was this person standing in front of them?

It wasn’t me.

And who were these kids staring back at me?

Her friends. The girls who suckered me into filming a staged video that they were certain would win them $10,000 on America’s Funniest Home Videos (it didn’t). The girls who convinced me kittens were trapped inside our walls (they weren’t). The girls who swore they beat Scott and me in a dance-off on Just Dance 2 (they most certainly did not). 

Their Mii’s are still on our Wii console, their notes and phone numbers and proclamations of being BFF’s are secured safely among Addie’s keepsakes, and their acts of friendship - in the face of the absolute worst - will forever be written on my heart.  

These are her friends.

Luckily, the next go-around was markedly better. I kicked the teacher to the curb and decided to just go with me.

I asked for a show of hands to see who already knew who I was.

Silly question.

I’m Addie’s Mom.

And I can do this.

Right?

'The Best Vacation Ever'

According to 5-year-old Tripp, last week's little jaunt to Colorado was, in fact, the best vacation ever.

He proclaimed this from a mountain top.

After bouncing up and down on a bungee trampoline at Peak 8.

The best vacation ever, huh.

Compared to what?

You see, this poor guy has spent half his life on the after side of death. Gosh that sounds awful, doesn't it? But, anyone who has ever suffered the loss of a child knows time is divided in two parts: before and after. And these parts are not equal. Not at all.

The last great vacation took place in June 2011. And it was just that: great.

But little man was only 2 years old.

So we started planning this vacation a couple of months ago. There was no intention of making it the best vacation ever. That was an added bonus, I guess. We simply wanted the boys to know that mountains exist. Seriously.

And so, we headed to our old familiar Summit County, knowing full-well the trip would pretty much plan itself.

It did.

There was swimming.

A little hiking.

Chipmunk feeding.

Sliding and jumping.

As well as general lounging around, shopping, playing air hockey, and introducing the boys to the classic film The Sandlot.

And Isaac, of course, asking, "Why do those boys say so many mean words?"

Stay innocent, Isaac. And don't you ever call your brother crapface (or any other name you picked up while watching that DVD not once, not twice, but three times in three days).

So, was it the best vacation ever?

There was more good than bad.

And that's something.

Moving Forward, Looking Back

Every now and again I find myself remembering what I like to call Little Addie.

Addie at age 3 decked out in her best princess attire.

Addie at age 4 making the shirt her dad wore with pride for so many years.

Addie at age 5 learning to ride her bike.

Addie at age 6 with a baseball cap on her head, glove in her hand, and gap-toothed smile across her face.

Addie at age 8 riding her scooter around the block.

Fueled by video tape footage, pictures in an album, or something as simple as a pair of Tripp's outgrown pajama bottoms, I travel back to a time when our days were filled with Dora the Explorer and nights were spent enjoying each other's company and popsicles on the front steps.

Lately, I've found my mind settling back into my old classroom in Gretna with a 7-year-old Addie by my side.

One of the perks of being a teacher was the fact that the buses would transport all the teachers' kids from their schools to ours after school. So there she'd sit, eating a snack, thumbing through her backpack, while kids who were there on their own accord (and those who were not) worked on their assignments.

She'd doodle on the board, sigh a few times, and eventually ask, "When are we going home?"

Ten more minutes, I'd say. And when those 10 minutes were up, it'd be 10 more.

And when it was finally time to go, we'd lock my classroom door, head toward the car, and more often than not, end with a conversation that went something like this:

"Mom, when I'm in high school, I hope I have your class last."

Pause.

"That way I can walk home with you."

I know what you're thinking (it's probably what I and the scores of other people I've shared this particular story with were thinking too).

We all agreed that 7-year-old Addie's sentiment might change when she's, oh, 17.

Seventeen.

What I wouldn't give to have 17-year-old Addie.

Even when I switched jobs three years ago and took an assignment at an elementary school, she always wondered why I couldn't teach at her school.

Now I can.

I recently accepted a position teaching at Addie's School (that's how the boys refer to it when we drive by each day). And as with everything these days, accepting that position was bittersweet.

Sweet because that's what she always wanted.

Bitter because she's not there.

Or here.

Addie, me, and my first teaching certificate.

Hay Y'all

Sitting atop one of the bales.

Let's talk hay bales. Yeah, I know. Ex-cit-ing. OK, not really. But, now that I've hauled off to the country I have to admit they're a little fascinating. Still not convinced? Yeah, me neither. But now that I have first-hand knowledge as to how they're created, I'll never look at another hay bale the same. You see along with a house and all of that, we also acquired four acres of alfalfa. Which, at first, I thought was kind of useless (especially after we found out we couldn't sell off the extra land and make a big fat profit). But then we started brainstorming all of the wonderful ways we could develop the land. Unfortunately we don't have the patience for pumpkins or even close to what it takes to establish a winery, so those dreams died pretty quickly.

The dreams may have died, but alfalfa remained - and we knew it would take an eternity for my husband to get through it with his 22-inch Tecumseh push mower.

Lucky for us, a local farmer showed up one day with his tractor and cut it. Then, said farmer arrived a few days later with another piece of farm machinery (a baler perhaps?) that raked it all up, wound it into a huge gigantic ball, and shot it out the back end. That's the cleaned up, PG version of what happened. Apparently the farmer will send us a check at the end of the year for all that hay. Cool. We'll probably get just as rich off that as we would the winery.

And if not, the bales make perfect targets for a little game of pasture golf. We could totally charge admission for that.