Side Dishes

JB has moved into an annoying phase, one that many other six year old girls are known to experience. Parents who've survived and remember the actual incoherence of a child's early stages of language development hope never to experience that stage again, yet with daughters sometimes they do as we are now that JB has begun to speak in 'baby talk'.

She is fluent in presenting incomplete sentences in her high pitched voice that simultaneously conveys the meaning of what is being said while being wholly grammatically incorrect and driving me over the edge.

Earlier this week after finishing lunch, JB looked at me and declared "Me done."

"JB, 'Me done' is not a proper sentence. Please say it the way you should."

To which Charles added "'Me done' while not a proper sentence, is however a little known but very tasty Cantonese side dish."

JB, laughing then asked "I'm full mama, may I clear my dishes?"

I'm laughing even now as I write this. The only question I have is where does Charles come up with this stuff?

Cowboy Kitty

He came to us on the Fourth of July. Actually, he didn't come, we did... and he followed.

Some friends have been through an awfully bad spell lately, the latest 'straw' has been the loss of the roof over their head. By no fault of their own, but rather a reputed greedy landlord. they have been in search of housing for the last few weeks. Since the residence they currently reside in does not allow pets, those four-footed kids of theirs have been visiting friends until the tide changes and the family can once again be complete under one roof.

Cowboy kitty was one of the displaced. When we found that he needed a temporary home, we took him in since we have experience with rambunctious kittens, the patience and restraint needed to successfully parent both Cowboy and JB & BW - who've never had a small and somewhat fragile creature to tend to, and we realized that given the severity of my allergies to kitties - this might be the only time that BW & JB might have in their childhoods to 'have' a cat - since I'm so terribly allergic to the feline kind.

Cowboy kitty, whom I lovingly started calling 'Tuck', spent 23 busy days with us. His family has happily found a home to call their own and tonight Cowboy was able to join his family of three excited children, mom and dad, and a wholly unsuspecting dog. While he was here we survived our share of frustrations, amusements, moments of tenderness, and of course - the midnight crazies.

I have to admit that I'm going to miss the little guy, and I know Charles, BW & JB will too.

At Rest

She no longer occupies her room, at least not the one under our roof.

When AunT relocated to Colorado, we all thought that her transition would be easier if she stayed with us for a few weeks; enough time to learn about the town, decide what area she wanted to live in and find a job. A few weeks turned into a couple of months and before we knew it nine months had passed.

During that time, her room was down the hall from ours. Even though we had our own bathrooms and private spaces, it could be a tight fit and we could be short tempered with each other due to our different life choices, ages, outlooks on life and similarly strong personalities.

Once she moved out onto her own and BW and JB arrived, whenever AunT would stay with us she would take residence in the basement 'guest room'.

Originally intended for any guests that might stop in for a visit, in reality it was her room. If she needed a place to stay during school holidays, if a break from her roommates was needed or she'd spent the night baby-sitting that was the room she would stay in. It was decorated with her in mind, and although we'd installed shelves and drawers for office supplies in the closet of that room, we all referred to it as AunT's room and she followed suit, calling it 'My room'.

It seemed to fit her lifestyle. She could watch her shows as loud as she wanted, stay in bed all day and each of us could converse without the details of our lives overlapping, as commonly happens in single family homes.

When she moved to Boston, and I began attending the university, we recognized that the room AunT once called her own was needed as an office. I needed it as a refuge in which to study, and changes in Charles's job required that he needed a work space at home in addition to the one he had at the office and with a mixture of sadness and excitement for the future, changes were made so that it no longer served as a guestroom.

After she passed away, all of her belongings were placed into her room to be catalogued, sorted and sent on to others. The hours that Charles and I spent sorting and cataloging her life, all the letters, emails, phone calls and associated tasks surrounding her life and death were taken care of in that room. It is also where her ashes were safely kept until we knew the time was right to find her final home, her resting place.

We knew it was time when JB asked where AunT was buried. Recently she and BW have developed an interest in what happens to people when they die, both in what happens to their bodies that are left behind, and their souls that make them human. When we were unable to provide her with an answer that left her satisfied (we thought it might be too much for them to know that her remains were in the house) it was obvious that the time for AunT to have her final home had arrived.

Over dinner a few years before T died, she, Charles and I had a conversation while lounging on the deck about what we would each like our final resting place to be like, and she expressed the thought that she would like to have her ashes spread upon a landmark mountain in our area so that she would forever be able to look down upon the town we live in and see the ones that she loved grow, especially BW and JB, and that those who knew her best would be able to look up at the mountain and know that she was at rest.

I so wanted to honor her wishes, so wanted to do as she requested but it just did not feel right. People need to be able to mourn in their own ways, need to have a place to visit, to say goodbye, to develop the rituals that help them cope with the loss of someone important in their lives regardless of how long they graced this Earth. I needed that, my children needed that. I know that AunT's mother, father and brothers need that. I know that many of her friends need that, and that is why I was unable, unwilling really to spread her ashes as she requested.

It is the ONE thing that she requested of us that we did not honor. Every other wish, request and command has been met whether others believe it or not.

On the day we inquired about a final niche for AunT's remains, we not only found a perfect one, but it was available, the stone was at the engravers and could be completed immediately, and everyone needed to create the flurry of paperwork and perform the internment was available. It was all so simple, so seamless that Charles and I were finally able to release that final burst of emotion and stress that had been building for so long and was so desperate for release. Now that she is at rest, it is time for others to visit and to have their time with her.

For us, the office where Charles and I each have work spaces is still occasionally thought of as 'her room', but that is changing. If I focus long enough I can see the shadow of her bed, the area she'd leave her luggage, the pile of clothes that would be laundered 'sometime' and smell her perfume in the air. Now though that she has her last home, those shadows will continue to fade and become a memory that is shared as it is needed.

If you would like to visit AunT, please leave a comment with an email address and I will pass along the information. Also indicate if you would like me to withhold your comment or email address from being published, as I review each note before making it public.

It's in the bank

While eating grilled shrimp and vegetable kabobs for dinner last night, BW muttered, "Crap. I can't get the tail off." He didn't even notice that he said a 'bad' word until it was pointed out to him.

Charles sputtered "Pardon me BW, what did you say?"

BW focusing solely on his shrimp "Um, what? I don't know. But I can't get this tail off and it's really frustrating me."

"*Sigh* BW, I'm sorry that you are frustrated, but we don't use that word in the house. It's not a good word, so please don't use it again, alright? BW?"

"'k Daddy."

As Charles said this though, he wasn't looking in BWs direction. No, he was in fact looking across the table directly at me, knowing that as with JB, BW most likely picked up this 'choice' word as a result of spending a lot of time with me now that summer is in full swing.

Ever since JB's slip of the tongue, it's only been a matter of time until I was going to be put into the position of setting a good example. And my time had come. Allow me to introduce the 'Mama Swear Jar'. One nickel for every bad word... and when it's full, the kids get donuts.

Hopefully it will take more than a week to fill the damn thing. I certainly don't need them to have any more sugar. They already have a colorful enough vocabulary, and I might go broke feeding their habit.

Something to Talk About

A week or so after JB's sixth birthday, I was sitting on the couch putting together a packing list for a trip we were taking to the east coast for a visit with relatives when she quietly and seriously approached me, with a very serious expression on her face and acting somewhat nervous.

"Mama, I have something that I need to talk with you about. But. It might hurt your feelings...so I don't know what to do."

"Well, if you have something you need to share, it would hurt my feelings more if you felt you COULDN'T share it with me. What ever you need to say, even if it hurts me a little, we'll both feel better after we chat about it. Ok?"

With even greater seriousness and trepidation, she sat down on the couch with her hands in her lap and her body slightly turned towards me as she took in a deep breath looked into my eyes and sighed before speaking.

"It's just. Well. I'm ... It's about the birthday present that you got me. Really, I'm happy that you got summer jamajamas for me, and they are really comfortable. ... *sigh*"

"Yes, I'm glad you like them, but what is the matter?"

"Well... ItsjustthattheyareprincessjammiesandIDON'Tlike princesses! I'm a lady, NOT a princess mama!"

And with that she flopped back onto the couch and released a deep sigh of relief.

What am I in for when she wants to talk with me about boys?

Every Little Piece of Me

It's been more than a year since AunT's death; all the various 'First' anniversaries have passed and it's difficult to categorize all of the little ways in which life has changed. Other than the gaping vacuum left by the loss of one of the more fantastical personalities I've ever known, our days have again become filled with more laughter than tears and we've begun actively living life.

The children, recognizing the ebb of mourning in we adults, have begun to talk openly of their memories of my sister, their doting AunT.

We've many conversations around the dinner table in which the phrase "oh my god remember with AunT would..." arises and a re-telling of one of the many "T" stories begins with animated laughter. Often portrayals of AunT fall to me as I not only look and sound like her, but I'm able to represent her mannerisms in an eerily accurate fashion.

Even when she wasn't in our immediate presence, she was only a phone call or brief drive away. She was as constant and as much a part of our lives even after she moved to Boston as the air that fills our lungs. Wherever she went chaos and adventure followed and if we weren't there to personally observe her adventures, she'd relish in the joy of retelling them.

After she left for Boston her nightly calls became a window through which she shared her new world. Those conversations taught us of the different cultures in Boston, that it was 'fricking cold all the time!', her roommates 'the boys' were a great deal of fun, and the challenges of homesickness that she battled were at times overwhelming.

When Charles and I went to Boston to close her affairs, in many ways it felt as though I'd already been there and had met the people in her life. As we packed her belongings, and made arrangements for her final trip home, her roommates relayed all the stories that she'd passed along to them and shared even more details of her time there.

Now that the raw shock of her passing has waned, we have begun the long term acceptance and incorporation of her ghost.

When AunT moved to Boston, she sorted through her belongings and passed along items that were favorites of BW's or JB's, things that she knew we could use, or that she was unable to let go of but couldn't fit into her car or justify carting to the far corner of the country. Also passed along were items that had been swapped back and forth between us so frequency that the ownership could no longer be established.

Within our home are numerous reminders of my sister; be it the cup I drink coffee out of every morning, the wallet that JB uses to tote around her 'important stuff', the radio upon which BW listens to music and has 'disco dance parties' in his room with JB and their friends during play dates and sleepovers, or the fountain that she purchased when she first moved to Colorado and lived with us and which was prominently located in each of her homes since then.

Where I once experienced overwhelming numbness or sorrow at the sight of such mementos of her life, I now smile at the memory and knowledge that even though she has gone, she still lives on through us. I also know that we are not alone in this regard. Many of my sister's friends and families have similar memories and objects that she passed along. She was generous with her friends, and after she died, we heard from many of them of the significant role she played in their lives, and their thankfulness in having been allowed to know her during her short time on this earth.

As a youth, one of my deepest and most intimate fears was that that I would not be remembered. As I approached the end of my high school years and began to prepare for college, my dread of growing older increased and many nights were spent fearing that like others in previous generations, I would age, attend school, possibly marry and have children, grow old and die without leaving any sort of 'mark' or lasting monument to my existence in the world. I would exist simply as a soul that lived, died and was forgotten.

Consequently, my early adult years were spent working to avoid the curse of the forgotten, trying to do my best, be my best and learn all that I could so that when I entered the work-a-day world I would be ready to tackle the it with my breadth of knowledge and 'be somebody'. During this time though, I forgot of the importance of living life and making the very memories that would allow my 'mark' to carry on.

With AunT's passing though, and the wealth of momentos that once graced her home, I realize that like her, friends family and acquaintances have not only their memories of me, but also stories to tell, possibly even an item or two that reminds them of me.

Where once I spent nights lying awake, wishing desperately to know the future and that I would 'make my mark' I no longer have that fear. As I've grown older, I've come to realize that like my sister, I am not the sort of person who will easily be forgotten, especially by friends and family, and through my children my stories will live on, just as my sister's memory lives on through me and all those who love her.

Growing Pains

JB has been suffering from growing pains these last few weeks. Not the joint aching, painful muscle cramping sort of growing pains. Those would be easy to manage. No, these are the boundary defining, personality creating growing pains in which she challenges each and every one of our decisions and tests the limits of our resolve.

This afternoon, she was escorted to her room for refusing to stop bickering after an increasingly dramatic argument in which Charles and I calmly maintained that she was not going to have a slice of pie just because she wanted one, that lunch had recently been served but she'd elected to eat only half of it before declaring that she was stuffed and cleared her plate.

JB began a temper tantrum so outlandish that it was hard to resist picking up a video camera to capture the flailing arms and kicking feet of our six year old. Yet we resisted, and she was deposited into her room until she’d worked out her frustrations.

At one point, she was banging on her door with her little fists until she could be heard saying, "Owe. That hurt." A few moments passed and thus began the chant. "Out, out, out! Let me out now!

"LET ME OUT NOW! If you don't let me out by the count of three, I AM GOING TO SCREAM! ARE YOU READY!? ONE… TWO… THREE…" And with that she began screaming at the top of her lungs. To be honest, it reminded me of the sound of a Piccolo Pete firework, only without the endurance. When she ran out of breath and a moment of silence passed, she’d began the chant anew followed by the countdown and scream.

BW set up camp outside her door and talked to her between screams. “JB, you can come out as soon as you settle down. They really aren’t being mean, they just want you to eat healthy, and not be a princess.“

And then she’d start the chant. BW turned the page of his magazine, shook his head and calmly said “*Sigh*…yeah, you aren’t getting out of there any time soon. Come-on JB, you can do it. Really, let’s go play outside, it’s boring in here.”

After an hour, he’d given up and retreated to the Lego Village in the rec room, and JB after working out her frustrations by creating her self portrait (pictured above), came downstairs, sought a long comforting hug and explained why she was upset ending with “I’m sorry I was a princess and not a lady.”

She stepped back, looked up to me with her dark green eyes and asked, “Can I have a slice of pie?”