Day 91- June 11, 2020

Day 91- June 11, 2020

I feel like at times, I've neglected my kids during quarantine.  Don't get me wrong, I'm spending a TON of time in the same room as them.  We are together constantly.  But a lot of that time recently feels like it's been spent with me working, and them trying to finish their homework on their computers.

A few years ago, things in our lives went financially crashing.  The business I'd thrown myself into for years was suddenly shuttered, and we found ourselves unable to afford our house.  We didn't want to sell, but at the same time, we couldn't stay.  So while trying to figure out the best alternative (rent?  sell?  Move into an RV on our buddy's property - a viable option we actually thought could be fun, considering how much we'd been watching "Tiny Home" shows that were all the rage), my stepdad Bryan jumped in and offered to let us move in with him and my mom.  My mom, after checking to make sure he was serious, and not suffering from a stroke, okayed the plan, and my two kids moved into my sister and my childhood bedrooms, while Jeff and I took up residence in the in-law suite off the kitchen, which had been created when my Granny moved in with my family around the time I turned 16.

The ironic part of this extreme downsize was how much it brought us together as a family.  We had moved from a large house with about 3000 sq. ft. of living space down to a bedroom/living room hybrid that clocks in closer to 300 sq. ft- that didn't have a lock on the door- and was off the kitchen we now shared with my mom and Bryan. Jeff was working as a bartender at an upscale restaurant from about 7 PM until close, I was teaching until noon, then working at the public library until 6, and my kids were in school until either Jeff or my mom picked them up.  Perhaps because of our insane schedules, those hours we spent together were extremely precious.  We made a point that if Jeff and I were both off on the same day, we had a family adventure.  We drove to the beach, took trips to Princeton to walk around, and Pennsylvania to hike.  There were days we went into New York to see the Museum of Natural History, walk around central park, or head north to the Bronx Zoo.   We made a point to have dinner together during our hour overlap even on the busiest of days.  And it was great.

The thing I've learned is that the things we do daily- those become so routine we take them for granted.  The people we see, the friends we spend a lot of time with, the little moments.  Yet when there's a rarity, or we miss out on these daily doses of the mundane. we yearn for them.  That's how it was with our family time- with it suddenly in short supply, we made a point to cherish each moment.

My VERY wet child after her run.

MyAnd now, with all of us cooped up together, it's almost something I started to take for granted.  Jeff has noticed it too, and he had make a conscious effort to do chess, swimming, and gardening time with R. and E., and finding other activities that appeal to each girl individually.  Today, for instance, he and E. went running (she's prepping for soccer, he's in the best shape he's been in since playing college lacrosse).  They got stuck in a sudden downpour, which E. thought was the greatest experience ever.  While she was showering post-run (since she was dripping wet anything, R. asked, for the third day in a row, if we could please bake cookies.

I acquiesced, and I put down my computer, she put down hers, and we spent some quality time going through her Children's Baking Book to find the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies she's been craving.  We had a minor mishap when we exploded some butter in our new microwave (oops), but otherwise, she was on task with mixing in the flour, oats, and cinnamon, and then adding in the eggs, melted (and cooled) butter, and sugar.  By the time we folded in the chocolate chips (which, of course, she had to sample to ensure they were yummy enough), she was grinning from ear to ear.  The finished product was delicious, and each girl was allowed one right away, because there are few things in the world better than cookies still warm from the oven, when the chocolate is still soft and gooey.

We took our Mommy- Rooskie (her nickname- a twist on "roo", which is what my best friend Ali and

You can never have too many BSC books

I have called dogs since we were kids)  time a step further, and worked a bit on the library she's making in her room.  I'm a librarian, and she's a "rule following" child who likes things to be done exactly, so finding her alphabetizing her collection of books last week didn't really seem out of the ordinary.  When I got in there, she'd already done a lot, including putting all the Babysitters Club books under "M" for Martin, and going a step further by putting them in order as well.

The only issue, though, is that as bright as she is, she gets distracted easily, and her biggest weakness is books.  Since she started reading at almost-four, if she has a book in her hands, forget it.  She has mentally checked out of our world, and is immersed in whatever is printed on the page.  So she needed a bit of help staying on task, and she wanted me to work with her on arranging her nonfiction texts by the Dewey Decimal System.  While I'm proud of her enthusiasm, I was more concerned with getting the books off the floor to remove the tripping hazard, so we compromised and put subjects (science, space, biographies) together, and alphabetized the fiction.  We can further divide the nonfiction some time in the future.

While we were working on the library, E. was reorganizing her diner once again.  She likes to freshen things up, swap out the animals in the "pet adoptions petting zoo" section (I know, having an alpaca and platypus next to the plastic food is probably some kind of health code violation), and add offerings at the diner.

This week, she's creating a menu, as that is part of her final "writing unit" for school.  The kids were given the option to do another slideshow, write poetry, craft a short story- or create an original restaurant menu.  I've got to hand it to her, the menu is adorable, with descriptions of the entrees, desserts, appetizers and drinks.  She even put in prices, complete with options to save money (appetizers are $2, but if you buy a dessert too- at $5 a dessert- you can do the appetizer for only $1).  She's got that entrepreneurial spirit that I have, and I'm impressed with her moxie at such a young age.  The only downside is that she likes creating so much, she loses track of bedtime, and has to be reminded 72,486 times to put down the ears of corn and cupcakes, and get into bed.

Day 90- June 10, 2020

Day 90- June 10, 2020

Another friend of a friend came through my mom's house today.  It's one of the neighbor's besties, and we were hopeful for a match, but I don't think it's meant to be.  It's a unique house, a large victorian colonial with a ton of charm, history, and character, but not the cutting edge modern updates some people are looking for.  Also, with three teens, the master bedroom on its own level is amazing, but the three bedrooms upstairs work for only two of them (the third is tiny), and the fourth large bedroom is ground level- with its own entrance- which may be a teen's dream, but probably not so much for a parent.

As I said to my mother, "Can you imagine if Nicole had been living in that room when she was 16?  She would have been sneaking out nightly."

To be fair, her response was to quip "She just climbed out the window."  E. overheard and I had to pretend we were joking- which we (sort of) were.

The porch where I spent a lot of humid
summer nights hanging out with friends.

As teens, my sister and I were pretty good, but there were definitely times we both snuck out, or snuck people (boys) into the house after hours.  I have some pretty distinct memories of climbing oh-so-carefully down the stairs to avoid the ones that squeaked, and pulling open the heavy sliding glass doors in the family room for some clandestine meetings (sorry Mom).

It's been tough coming to grips with selling this house.  Teenage antics aside, there were also a ton of additional memories in that house, the floodgates for which I'm not quite ready to open just yet.  There's history in a home that's been in your family for 35 years.  I grew up there, I learned to love there, I cried, said good-bye, said hello- all at that house.  As I said to my husband today, "there's not a place I can look on this property that I don't have a memory."  To demonstrated, I pointed to the giant rocks, which were pulled up and moved when they demoed an old barn by the side woods.

"See those boulders?  That's where Nicole and I used to draw with watercolors- and jump off of when we were feeling ambitious."  I turned towards the woods near the back.  "That big oak?  There was a vine that hung from it that I used to swing on, until it fell.  Then, we had a tire swing hung from a big branch, and I used to sail out over the blackberry bushes."

I kept pointing.  "And that tree at the start of the path in the woods?  Ali and I  transplanted it when it was a sapling.  And the path to her old house-  remember when we lit it up with Christmas lights and had that epic Memorial Day party in our yard and Ali's, with all those people from college and our home friends because we ran into high school buddies at The Office and invited them- and they all showed up, with more friends?!  There must have been 200 people here!"

Now I was looking closer, checking things off in my head, thinking of the inside of the house as well as the yard.

That's where we first saw my puppy, Greta, when I was in third grade.
That's where I used to swing and sing along with Billy Joel's Greatest Hits while my dad built the three-season porch.
That's the window my crush broke in 6th grade by tapping it with a flashlight as he and a bunch of the boys from my elementary school crashed my birthday party. 
That's the dirt path Greta created by running around the pool area, trying to "herd" us.
That's the hallway where my sister and I played epic battles of indoor soccer.
That's where we had soccer practice for my rec team in the backyard.
That's the spot where my mom stood cradling Allison the puppy in her arms on Christmas morning, with Greta bounding around her feet.
That's the deck where I ran around with  my friends, swinging bells and blowing into noisemakers, shouting "Happy New Year!" and freezing in our nicest outfits.
That's where we put a canoe in the pool when we had our final soccer party in 8th grade, because our coach had to stop coaching us since she worked at our high school (the canoe was for her).
That's where I walked into the only surprise birthday party I've ever had, singing "Au Bal Masque" with Ali and Heather at loud decibels.
That's where my treehouse was, where I had my first real kiss (my parents may have been smart to take that thing down)
That's the spot where I had my first kiss with my husband- when we were 15- right before his mom pulled into the driveway to pick him up. 
That's the garage where I had my sweet sixteen party.
That's the basement where we filmed a French video about zombies.
That's the porch where I my friends and I hung out during hot summer rainstorms in our late teens.
Those are the steps I stood on while hugging my granny after my dad, her youngest son, died.
That's where my sister and I hung up tarps so we could continue to have bands playing in the rain for a party.
That's where my mom and stepdad threatened to call the police because there were still late party guests in the pool at 4AM.
That's the kitchen where my husband asked my mom for her blessing before picking out my engagement ring.
That's the spot where we told my mom she was going to have another grandchild, and she said "How did this happen?!" (we had a nine-month old at the time) and my husband responded "Well Laura, when a man and woman really love each other..." before I smacked him on the arm.
That's where my daughters met their cousins for the first time.
That's where we took photos for my mom's wedding to my stepdad.
That's where the girls learned to swim.
That's where we had a mini-reunion of my best friends (and their children) before our 20th high school reunion.

PART of the backyard (there's a whole soccer field
on the other side of the pool)

It's a lot, and those are maybe a hundredth of the memories that swirl every time I walk through that house, on that property.  It's hard to believe how quickly the time flew by, and how much I'm going to miss it. Over the next several weeks, while I'm writing this daily blog, I'm sure I'll elaborate on these (or others) that are shareable to the public as I'm reminded of moments while experiencing the present.  The private memories, which are some of the best of course, those I'll keep to myself and to talks with friends and loved ones.  But it's good to be writing, it's good to remember.

When I was writing my thesis, I wrote about a theory on time that exists- one that says that at any moment, in any place, that everything that has ever happened, and will ever happen, are all going on simultaneously.  If you could just peek through the fabric of time, you could glimpse those moments.  At my mom's house, I always have that feeling, and I think that's what I'm going to miss the most.  With access to that place, it feels like those memories are alive, that as long as I'm there to see them in my mind's eye, they are still occurring, somewhere in the ether.

And I have to remind myself, it's a place.  It's just a place, and the memories - those are going to be with me, long after my mom moves.  They are a (rather large) part of who I am, who I am becoming, and who I'm going to be.  And that's always going to be true.

Day 53- May 4, 2020

Day 53- May 4, 2020

Because of the "May the Fourth" thing, today is also known as "Star Wars Day" in nerd circles (which I consider myself a part of).  The girls and I watched Buddy Vs. Duff, a show about two outstanding cake decorators and their equally brilliant teams of artists. In honor of today, the teams had to create their finale cakes in the style of Star Wars, honoring the new Star Wars themed sections at Disney World and Disneyland.  Duff's team won the battle- they crafted a spot-on X Wing Fighter, and a Yoda that looked so much like the real deal that if you put them next to each other, you'd have a tough time distinguishing which one was cake.  But Buddy's group pulled out the season victory by a narrow one and a half points.  R. and I quickly figured out that if Duff hadn't been penalized for going over on time for the aquarium challenge, he would have won (in other words, his cakes beat Buddy's, but his time management cost him the series).

So May the Fourth Be With You.  Literally.  The governor declared schools are closed for the rest of the school year, and we can all use the force right now.  When I gently broke the news to the girls, E. got very excited initially, saying "you mean no more school work?!" as a grin climbed across her face.  I quickly shut that down with "No, sorry honey, it means we keep doing work from home.  We just don't go back to school until probably September".  At this point, she put on her best soap opera reenactment, bending over backwards wailing "Nooooo!"  If she'd been wearing an evening gown and fallen on a fainting couch, it couldn't have been more dramatic.

On the plus side, E. is more excited about her latest project than I've seen her be about any other school work since we've been home.  She is officially working on a slide show about Manatees.  She shared several facts she found out with me- like that they are related to elephants, swim in warm ocean water, and have no real natural predators.  She has also changed the font on her slides so that each heading has each letter highlighted by a different color- I wish her teacher good luck deciphering them.

I was sadder than I expected when I heard that schools were closed, and teared up a little.  It's strange, because I'd been preparing for this, knowing that realistically, there was no way schools could safely reopen (and frankly, also knowing that June is a month of huge school gatherings, like proms, concerts, and graduations, so if they did reopen, we were truly offering the perfect circumstances for the spread of illness).  For myself, I'm okay- I know I can continue to work from home, aid my colleagues and students through technological offerings like websites, curated resources, and grants that I'm applying for.  But for the students- that's where my heart breaks a little.

The younger ones will be fine- yes, they may miss field trips and "move up day".  But the seniors- oh wow, to miss this much of your senior year.  As a teen, a week can feel like a year, and relationships, friendships, and what is most important can change quickly and deeply.  Delaying celebrations or events will be something that robs these people of something irreplaceable- and while it's necessary for safety and health, and I do agree with the decision, I also know how important those last months of high school are.

For sports, my life would be different if I hadn't had my final season playing soccer.  That year saw my team go 26-0, win the league, county, and state titles, and end the year ranked #1 in the entire country by USA Today. To have to give up a senior season of a sport you've spent your life playing, your final shot with your friends for those elusive titles?  It's a lot for an 18-year-old to process.

Or the last play of high school, or yearbook signing, or graduation night.  At my school, graduation was spectacular- after walking, and throwing our caps in the air, there was a cruise around the New York City harbor, and then an all-night, chaperoned party at the school, which parents had spent all day decorating in a surprise theme.  My year, it was the 1980's- giant video games, cardboard cut outs of Star Wars characters, Garbage Pail Kids cards, and movie posters.  There was a DJ who played all night, and people danced literally until dawn, when our parents picked us up (personally, I went home, slept for an hour, went to soccer practice because we had regionals the next week, and then napped for about six hours).  These are priceless memories, and it's hard to ask a child to wrap their heads around giving them up.  I'm hopeful that towns and schools will find a way to make it up to the students, but I don't know if that is possible.

Trying not to blow away

After the shock of no more school set it, the girls needed to get out some energy, so I sent them outside.  It was incredibly windy, and while the air was warm, the trees were bending and bowing all over the place.  R. and E. kept going with their umbrella games from yesterday, running and leaping across the yard with their umbrellas trailing above them.  While they were occupied, I helped Jeff certify for unemployment benefits (spoiler alert: the system still is saying $0 as the amount, meaning independent contractors like him aren't fully processed yet, and there's no indication of when that will be).  Jeff went back to painting (he's getting a ton done- the house is starting to look more like an HGTV "after"), and I worked with the girls on figuring out what to make for dinner.

We settled on leftover veggie latkes from last night, plus Annie's Mac and Cheese, and watched Food Network Go, which has become our favorite station as of late.  With the Buddy Vs. Duff saga over, we jumped into the new Martha Stewart led Bakeaway Camp, where a group of contestants sleep in tents (I think- there were tents in the yard), cook outside, and the winner of mini-challenges gets one on one mentorship opportunities with Martha herself.  After watching a S'mores challenge that made us rather hungry, we then watched an old episode of Spring Baking Championship featuring my children's favorite challenge: imposter desserts.  This is when you take a savory dish (in this case, backyard barbecue food) and instead make a dessert designed to look like that dish, but taste like dessert.  The winner of the challenge was a woman who made brownie "ribs" and fondant covered rice cereal treats that were shaped like corn on the cob.  Genius.

The girls played a little chess on the floor while I cleaned up the kitchen, and then we called Grammy to read a bedtime story to E. Reading is a staple of getting the girls ready for dreamland, and R. and I have moved on to Peter and The Starcatcher- a take off of Peter Pan by Dave Barry, who is my favorite columnist.  If you've never read his work, it was syndicated on Sundays for years out of the Miami Herald, and I can remember laughing out loud at breakfast reading his work.  I would then cut out the columns, and put them (along with comic strips from the paper) on the back of my bedroom door.  It was a work of collage art that I loved- and became the bane of my mom's existence when I eventually moved out and she had to deal with all the tape and paint peeling that went along with removing it.

I'm trying to keep up with the daily traditions my kids have come to enjoy, like the bedtime stories.  The normalcy of it, the promise of another day, another chapter, is something concrete for them to hold onto- and for me too.  It's all we can do.

Day 40- April 21, 2020

Day 40- April 21, 2020

40 days and 40 nights.  It's been a long time, and getting longer.

Today, I was ready to write about the thunderstorm that took place this morning, when the house shuddered with every clap and the girls ran into the greenhouse off the sunroom so that they could look up and see the water pouring down the plastic roof.  They squealed as the water drip dropped in from one section (it's not a permanent structure), and they tiptoed around the puddle.

I was prepping to say how wonderful it was this afternoon, when we got the whole Brownie troop onto Zoom, and had a big meeting where the girls were able to write and draw about their experiences being home with their families.  Most importantly, they got to just talk to their friends, and see their faces.  They miss each other, and it's hard for a nine-year-old to grasp this stuff (even a super-smart one like my daughter.

It was also a day where I practiced facepainting on the girls, at their request.  They love a show called Miraculous Ladybug, where the main characters "transform" into superheroes based on their "miraculouses" (basically, a little tchotchke).  They wanted to be transformed by their miraculouses, so we pulled out the facepaint I had bought for R.'s birthday two years ago, and I went to work making them into BeanieBoo-inspired penguin and reindeer superheroes.

But it's also a day where I had to break the news to my daughters that our tenants (who live in the apartment above our garage) lost their dog Jiggy today.  The girls had been excited to move home when we did so last summer because we got to come home.  But the added bonus was Jiggy, a 14 years young Jack Russel Terrier who loved to play fetch with E. in the yard and run around with R.  We told them at dinner, and E's reindeer makeup ran a lot.   They lost their dogs two years ago, within three weeks of each other as both succumbed to old age, so they understand to a degree, but it doesn't make it easier.

And then after dinner came the big blow- a mom friend of mine from my daughters' old school succumbed to cancer the other night, and her husband posted the news on Facebook.  Her children were in R. and E's classes, and she was one of the first people I met when we had moved in with my mom almost three years ago.  We had her and her family over to swim, and frequently ran into them on the playground and at soccer practices, since E. and her son play for the same club.  Our daughters played on the same softball team, and I occasionally drove them to or from, depending on how she was feeling (they lived around the corner).

I knew she had been undergoing treatment for a long time, but you always hope for a miracle, and it is a legitimate tragedy that this beautiful soul had to leave her family way too soon.  She was a fighter to the end, and her kids were always her first priority.  As I read the note, I looked at Jeff, and squeaked out for him to take the girls into the other room, while I ran to the bathroom and bawled.  When I had calmed down sufficiently, I told him what had happened, and we mutually agreed to hold off on telling the kids until morning.  It's going to be hard, because I don't have any words for this kind of a tragedy.  I don't know how to make sense of it myself, and the thought of her husband and children having to deal with this new reality at any time, let alone in isolation, is gut wrenching.

When you hear truly awful news, it puts everything else in perspective. I've heard people complaining about losing jobs and money, missing hanging out and all the other things that normally are priorities in life, but let's face it.  At the end of the day, as long as we are alive and able to be with our loved ones, we will find a way through.  Losing someone shines a very bright light on how grateful I am for the "simple" things I have, my husband next to me, my kids sleeping in their rooms.  I will grieve as best I can in these weird times, attending a virtual service for this incredible woman. And that fight that she displayed- the staunch resilience and love- that will live in on her kids, her husband, and all those who knew her.  We're all better for having had her in our lives.

Day 37- April 18, 2020

Day 37- April 18, 2020

The guest room pre-cleanup

Today was a cleaning day- sort of.  I say sort of because without hawk-like supervision, my daughters are not the best at putting things away.  The younger one inevitably begins to take the things that need to be put away, and instead develops an elaborate storyline for them, complete with placing them in new places (granted, more orderly places, but we now have a pet shop on her desk with all her Beanie Boos).  The older one finds a book that she's half finished with, flips it open, sprawls out, and an hour later, whines "I got dis-TRACT-ed!" when I find her oblivious to the pile of stuff she's snow-angeled into the space around her.

But I at least got the downstairs relatively clean.  Homework from the last week has been placed in or on the piano bench in the corner, area rug has been vacuumed, shelves are dusted, and the living room looks like a place I want to hang out again.  The girls eventually picked up the majority of the Legos, and I was able to vacuum the guest room and put it back together so I can clean out the closet and go through our linens tomorrow (I need to get rid of the excess so we can have space for what we actually need).

I'm glad I cleared stuff out, because one of our grocery delivery services, www.gratefulproducebox.com (who I ordered from YESTERDAY and said it would likely take up to 4 business days to arrive) showed up this morning.  I commenced with wiping down everything plastic with Lysol, submerging all fruits and veggies into water to decontaminate them, and organizing the produce into new containers.  It was mixing bowls for the pears and apples, a tray for some of the biggest mushrooms I've ever seen, and some glass Tupperware for the blueberries and blackberries.  I also started planning dinner in my head: sautéed asparagus, giant salad, leftover pizza for me, and Annie's Mac and Cheese for the kids.

One of my favorite parts of having fresh produce is that I've been buying a few things we don't normally have, like celery, since there are minimum amounts you have to spend, and there's only so much lettuce one can eat before it starts to go bad.  The celery makes me especially happy, because when I was younger, we would go to Martha's Vineyard and stay at my Aunt Dot's house, and the salads there were always a motley crew of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrots, and celery as the "different" ingredient.  It adds a crunchy texture and an earthy taste, and every time I have it, I flash back to those family meals on the splintering, weathered deck looking out over the bay.

The rest of the day was relatively lazy.  It was cold (again), and drizzly (also again), and we discovered Dessert Games with Duff on the Food Network Go app.  The girls may have watched more Sonny With a Chance (I think they only have an episode or two left of the series at this point), and my friend Heather came over to grab the birthday supplies for her son's birthday tomorrow.  He's turning 11, and I'm thrilled that the helium tank, balloons, and sign are being used again to make another kid happy during the lockdown.  It was also good to see one of my best friends in person (even if it was from about thirty feet apart) and talk about "normal" things like our children, and getting them to read more, and how to keep them occupied and happy.  We lost track of time until her husband texted me looking for her (she'd left the phone in the car) and questioning if I could ask her if he should start dinner.

It was good to see her.  I'm looking forward to days spent with her and her kids in one of our yards while we sit on the porch watching them.  It's the little things like that that I am missing right now.  Someday soon, this will all be a memory, and we'll go back to living like we used to.  But I do hope that the desire for closeness to the people who matter to us remains strong, and that we remember to appreciate each other a bit more.

Day 33- April 14, 2020

Day 33- April 14, 2020

Christmas morning, 1980-something

Today, we received a package from my late-Aunt Joanna's sister Janet, containing family photos (still in their frames), a picture that was my Granny's of Johannes Brahms at his piano, and a few books that hold sentimental value.  I teared up when I saw the boxes on the front porch, because I knew that they would be coming at some point, but wasn't sure it would be so soon.

Joanna passed away the day after Christmas, and was one of the kindest people I've ever known.  She and her late-husband Bob (my dad's brother) were always entertaining at parties, cracking jokes, ready with big smiles and hugs.  One of my favorite photos is from when I was about five years old- I'm sitting on Granny's lap, wearing a giant furry bear head hat, and there's Aunt Joanna, with her arm around Bob, beaming.

Joanna had been a model in her younger years, a striking All-American blond beauty with straight blond hair and bright eyes.  She worked for jewelry shops as she got older- she used to gift my sister and me chunky wonderful pieces of costume jewelry (we were very into dress up as kids- between the costume jewelry and orange ballgowns, polka dotted cocktail dresses and various fur stoles that were in a trunk in the attic, we were ready for whatever our imaginations could come up with).  She never had children of her own, but was a decade younger than Bob, and a few years younger than my parents, and loved to play with us when we were little.  She even gave us her Barbie dolls, which would have been worth a fortune if we hadn't taken to dying their hair with watercolor paints before we knew their value (to us, though, they were priceless in terms of the fun we had).


She and Bob lived in a stone house in the town I now reside in.  It was across from a YMCA, and I drive by it occasionally.  Remarkably, I can still remember bits of the inside, the stone fireplace, the carpet, and their dogs wrestling, even though I was in early elementary school when they packed up and moved to San Antonio, Texas.  They didn't come back as frequently as I would have liked, though they did manage to make it north for the occasional Christmas celebration.  Jeff and I visited them once too, on a cross country drive in the early 2000's.  I remember when we arrived at the house, Joanna's hands were shaking, but after a bit of orange juice, she was ready to go, and we went exploring, taking in the River Walk, a not-suitable-for-children restaurant called Dick's, and The Alamo.  It was the most time I'd spent with her since I was a child, and I absolutely loved it.  Her laugh was still lyrical, if a little stymied by years of cigarettes and alcohol.


The last time I saw her, it was for my sister's wedding.  We first caught up with her on our way to the venue for the "welcome" dinner, where she sweet talked a worker in a passing golf cart into giving her and E. a ride up the hill from our parked cars to the restaurant.  E.was thrilled, and I have a picture of them relaxing as they cruised.

It was a weekend to remember, and we took a big family photo on the dock of my sister's island.  The picture is a little grainy (it was night, and camera phones weren't perfect).  But she's beaming, and wrapped in a shawl next to one of my cousins.  It's the last photo I have of her, and it's perfect.  We were making plans to try to visit her next time we drove south for a school break, and she was excited to head to my sister's farm this summer for the 50th anniversary of it being in our family. I'm happy she finally got on Facebook after the wedding- even though we didn't see her in person, we exchanged messages a lot, and talked on the phone several times.  It made me feel more connected to her, and I'm happy it meant she was able to be in touch with us, and many old friends.

We called her this Christmas, as is our annual tradition.  My dad's whole family (all his cousins and us) get together for Bloody Marys, brunch, and merriment (I even had t-shirts made this year with that message).  It's something that has gotten fancier in the last few years- as a kid, it was more about the bacon and scrambled eggs, with bagels of course.  Now, there are still bagels, but the egg dishes are more gourmet, and there are fancy items like steamed mussels, and lox for the bagels.

But the constant is the phone call to Joanna.  We pass the phone around the table, each taking a turn to catch her up on our lives, see how she's doing, and laugh about whatever random topics of conversation come up.  I wrote about the family traditions we have, specifically that one, several years ago, and it makes me happy to think about the joy we all shared.

Even with Joanna in the hospital, we turned on the speaker phone and called South Carolina, only to find that the phone in her room wasn't hooked up, and according to the nurse "she was sleeping".  We called her sister Janet to make sure that when Janet saw her, she'd tell her we tried.  I don't know if Joanne ever got the message- when my mom spoke to Janet that night, she said that Joanna was on heavy doses of morphine to deal with the pain from the sepsis that had set in, and it was looking like she may not last the night.

Less than 24 hours, I was sitting in a parking lot when my mom called, and I knew without answering that Joanna was gone.  I held it together until we hung up, and then let myself cry.  My dad, all his siblings, and my granny had predeceased her, and now my mom is the only one left from that immediate crew.  I'm grateful my dad's first cousins are all still with us, still regaling us with stories of their crazy younger years, when they helped build the farm, drove cross country, and took vacations as a group to places like Martha's Vineyard and the Jersey Shore.

Looking through the boxes Janet sent, the thing that made me smile the most were Christmas cards from the last several years, as well as post cards and even some newspaper clippings, tucked inside the books my sister and I had written.  I'm going to mail my sister's up to her, and I think she'll get a kick out of reading the postcards especially.  I turned to a random page in mine, and it was a story I'd written about my dad and Uncle Bill, and cliff jumping near my uncle's farm upstate.  The passage was:

In the ensuing years, I would see a variety of people bound off this bluff.  Sometimes they were naked, appendages flailing in the summer sun. Sometimes they brought booze, or rowdy girls, or both. Once, when the plumbing was out, we came by kayak with soap and shampoo, and bubbles danced around us after our leaps. But nothing felt quite so magical as watching my balding uncle and graying father relive their youths by bolting off that cliff. 

It seemed a little like a message- to enjoy the moments we have, to embrace the silly and the joy. I took that to heart this evening, when I took photos of my kids jumping off the swingset again, and played a family game of soccer in the yard.

Aunt Joanna always lit up the room of people around her, and while she had her hard days (don't we all), she made a point to do the thoughtful things that made the world a kinder place, like giving me an etching that she had from when she was a little girl for my daughter, and commandeering the backseat of a friend's car that was headed to New Jersey, so that she could send up a family rocking chair for R. when she was learning to read.  Now, she's passed along these beautiful mementos- photos of our family that I can show my kids, and use to teach them about their relatives, especially my bright eyed aunt, who is dancing with her husband in one of the pictures, happily together for all time.