During my trip back to Colorado last weekend, I got to see my brothers and sister.   We took a ride out to the family farm, where my brother is holding down the fort (quite nicely, I might add.) The first thing I noticed is that my Dad immediately got into a conversation with my brother…asking questions, giving advice.

Then we went to a restaurant that we frequent, the Blue Parrot, for my favorite spaghetti.   What happened?  My Dad got into a conversation with my other brother…asking questions, giving advice.

It really struck me how things never really change.  I remember this scene playing out over and over again, between my Dad and my Grandfather, when I was growing up.  On the farm, in a restaurant, at their home after Church on Sunday.  There were always questions, there was always advice.   The cycle repeats itself.

If it seems like I have been MIA…well, perhaps I have been.  I have spent the last two weeks celebrating my  birthday.   I think I will continue celebrating for a while, if you don’t mind.

In the mean time…I received this photo today from Tammi and Adam.  It’s a photo with my sister and Mom from the wedding in NYC last November.   It reminds me of what a wonderful time I had with my family that weekend…and of how much I love these two women.   This will easily become one of my favorite photos of “the girls”.

I have some vivid memories of Easter Sundays on the farm.   I remember the dress that I wore one year at the age of 5 to my Uncle Vic’s house, I remember the corsages that my Dad bought my sister and I every year, I remember the 100 egg omolet that I helped stir at Grandpa’s house.   But one memory that sticks out for me is from one particular Easter morning hunt at the farm.

Every Easter morning all of my siblings and I would wake up early (usually before the crack of dawn) and search the house for those Easter goodies that my folks hid.   One particular year, when I was a pre-teen, I remember how we scoured through the house with no results.  We lived in a large farm house, and there were lots of places to hide these magical goodies, but we usually didn’t have any trouble uncovering the secret hiding places.  But not this year.  We searched, and we looked, and we hunted…no luck.

The five of us gathered in the kitchen not quite sure what to make of it.  Did they skip it this year?  Did they forget?  Did they think we were getting too old for this kind of fun?  My brother sat down at the table to think.  Next thing we knew, he shouted, “I found it!”   Sitting right on top of the vinyl multi-textured table cloth were five little rings with each of our initials in them.  How cool was this?

I loved wearing that little ring with the adjustable band.  But, unfortunately, I didn’t get to wear it for long.  Later that week, I was playing out in the yard on a warm afternoon.  I grabbed the top rail of the wood corral to jump over the fence and catch up with my brother who was looking for a lost baseball in the pen behind the cattle chute.  As soon as I grabbed the rail, the adjustable edge of my little ring caught on something and went flying.  Oh No!!  I couldn’t believe that had just happened.  I didn’t see which way it went.  I didn’t know where to start looking.  I’m pretty sure that it went into the corral, which unfortunately currently housed a bull that I was none too excited to hang out with.  With the recent spring weather, the corral was also muddy and uneven, not the best territory to treasure hunt in.

I eye balled the ground from the top of the fence.  My brother looked around a little for me in the corral (thanks for that bro!), but since we didn’t know which direction it flew, it was an impossible task.  I looked in the cattle chute, in case it had flown behind me, I looked on the cement ground below me, in case it had simply fallen.  No luck.  It was gone.   I was devastated.

For years, whenever I went into this area, I found myself surveying the ground…you know…just in case.  To this day, my favorite pieces of jewelry are still rings.  I’m sure this was the beginning of it for me.  Someday, I will have to acquire a ring with my initial on it to replace this wonderful Easter gift from my folks.  Yes, Easter means more to me than this superficial story might suggest, but so do the precious memories of growing up on the farm and the love of my family. This story, to me, is the story of those irreplaceable memories of the love of my family.

What was your favorite Easter Egg hunt?

The way I was raised..if your mother asked you to do something…well, you did it!  It is for this reason that I have been living with a slight degree of guilt for the last couple of years.  O.K.  It is more then slight guilt, and it has been more then a couple of years, but who’s counting?

Let me set the scene for you.  It is a sunny day in November 2005…or was is 2004?  The guilt has me confused!  We were in Colorado celebrating the 50th Wedding Anniversary of my parents.  All five of their children were in attendance.  Our opening presentations were truly Oscar worthy..we are an amazing bunch of kids. I’m sure you are already wishing that you were there too.  (Come on….cut me some slack here, the years of guilt has me slightly dilusional.)

One by one, in chronological order of age, each of  us children took the microphone to share some words about our parents.  We were all very eloquent, witty, delightful, humorous, and totally brilliant.  (Ooops, sorry, slipping again.)  Being child number four, I spoke fourth. I guess that might have been obvious…?

Anyway…my mother asked me that night to write down what I had said so that she could save it.  “Sure, Mom. No problem.”  Uhhmm.  Maybe it was a slight problem, because I haven’t done it yet.  Doh!   Now, if you have been able to follow all the mathematical equations so far, you have beaten me to the conclusion that I AM LATE. Bad daughter. Bad, bad daughter.  But never fear Mom, you have taught me well.  “Better late then never” will be the lesson I will call on, right next to the “Always do what your mother asks you to do” lesson. So, here goes, to the best of my recollection.

“My younger brother, Tom, and I talk to each other every morning on the phone as we commute to work.  We typically talk about business, solving each others corporate problems.  We are brilliant that way, just ask us! (yes, I really said that…oops!)  and we talk about family.  One day we got to talking about our parents.  We pondered the question of which parent was the worrier.  I thought that it was Mom. Tom thought it was Dad.  We discussed this for a while until we realized that we really didn’t know.  Who was the stricter parent?  We didn’t know.  We talked about a few more personality traits until we realized what a truly united couple they always were.  As parents you didn’t know where one ended and the other began.  There was no playing one against the other…they were truly in this together.  What a great example they gave us.  Like Mary mentioned before me, yes I want to be like my Mom when I grow up, but mostly, I want to LOOK like my Mom.  She still looks so amazing!”

Whew!  Here you go, Mom. Better late then never, right?  You and Dad still got it goin’ on.  I love you both!

She couldn’t speak.  She had spent the afternoon crying.  She was in shock and devastated.  The best she could do was send me a message on Skype.   “I have something that you need to hear.”   This is the message that beeped into my skype stream late one afternoon.  The tears and sorrow flowed through as the words poured out of her.

I watched the instant messages from my daughter as she shares with me that one of her dearest friends had suddenly passed away.  Noone knew what happened, noone saw it coming, noone could believe it.   I knew that she was not prepared to deal with this.

Are we ever ready to deal with this?  Certainly not.   She has experienced the loss of great grandparents.  She lives 1200 miles away from my childhood home so these were family members that were not a part of her day to day life.   This time…this was close to her home.  Lee was special.  Lee was someone who she had spent three years with at college…hanging out in each others dorms, going to school events together, studying together, eating together, taking road trips together, laughing together, crying together.   He had graduated a year before my daughter, but they remained close.  Lee and his girlfriend had recently spent some time over the holidays in our home.  Our home was one of the stops on their “couch surfing” tour as they visited good friends.

Lee had the biggest heart.  It was evident to everyone who came near him.  Just to be in the same room with him, you knew that you were being wrapped in love and kindness.  In the end, it was his heart, it was just too big.  He shared what he was supposed to share with us mere mortals, and now God has asked him to expand his influence from heaven.

How do you prepare your children for this kind of devastating loss?  I don’t think you do.  The hardest part is that my daughter lives 200 miles away from me and I could only give her virtual hugs.  All I could do was encourage her to take the time to travel to Lee’s home town to honor his life.  He is also from Colorado (my home state), so my family members were called, plans were made, weather reports were consulted, and she and a friend set off for Colorado.

I feel better that even though I cannot wrap my arms around her in comfort, my family will be able to.  Thanks Steve and Arlene, and everyone else back home, for taking care of my baby girl!

My son is now a young man, looking to find his way in this world.  He is seeking gainful employment, with his eyes on the prize.  The prize is moving out on his own.  I’m excited for him…anxious to see him grow…eager to see what path he takes in life.  With all that said….I will miss him when he leaves home.  I will miss how he:

• goes to the grocery store for me
• picks up my mail
• makes me laugh every day
• bonds with our puppy
• talks geek with me
• shares his love of music
• is my in-house tech guy
• cracks me up with his sense of humor
• rolls his eyes at me when I’m being too much of a “Mom”
• fixes the broken faucets
• updates my computers
• makes me laugh out loud
• shares his passion for computers and hardware
• he is willing to have great conversations with me on random topics

I could go on, but I won’t.  Sure, it is nice to have my own little handy man around, but I will miss his sense of humor and his conversations about his life passions the most.   I am always amazed when we get into the indepth conversations.  He has such a depth of understanding on social issues, political topics, and when he is excited about a topic…stand back.  The boy knows his stuff.  When I ask him how he knows so much about the subject, he just looks at me like “Duh…I research and look things up.”

Yep, I will miss him.   Shhh…don’t tell.

Oh no!!!  It’s true! She IS the better sister!!

St Patricks Cathedral was truly a stunning structure!

Dolled up for the big wedding!

The City and my Daddy.  What more does a girl need?

My beautiful sister and gorgeous mother!

Fun!  Fun!  Fun!  I have been able to clear my schedule to take a trip to New York City in three short weeks!  My nephew Adam, and his fiancee Tammi, are getting married on November 14, 2009.   I will be joining the happy couple, Adams parents (my brother), my folks, my sister and all the wedding guests for a wonderful weekend of family, love, celebration and FUN!  I can’t wait.

It was 1995 the last time that I was in NYC.  My sister and I are already plotting what trouble we can get into.  Two girls loose in the city.  Any suggestions?  It is a good thing that our parents will be there too.  I wonder if they already realize the potential danger and will be reimplementing our curfew?….Nah!   Hopefully the wedding festivities will keep us out of trouble.

Congratulations to our beautiful couple!  Welcome to the family, Tammi!  I’m really looking forward to meeting you, and to celebrating your special day with you.

A big part of my plan in going home for Thanksgiving, was to pull off a Surprise 50th Birthday Party for my sister, Mary. Amazingly enough, we were able to hold the secret. She didn’t have a clue!

The whole weekend came about because of a conversation that I had with my sister the week before Thanksgiving. Mary was telling me how she and her family were going to spend Thanksgiving with Mariyln’s family. Marilyn is one of my best friends from high school, and is also one of my sisters best friends. After she told me of these plans, I admit that I pouted (o.k. o.k. Marilyn, you win. I WHINED) a little bit. Marilyn and her husband had lived in the Pacific Northwest while our children were toddlers. Our families spent several delightful Thanksgivings together. After enduring a few moments of my whining, Mary simply said, “So, why don’t you join us?” It was that easy.

After checking with my son to confirm that he would be spending Thanksgiving with his father (my daughter had already ditched me for the holidays as she was going home with her bf), I jumped online and found the best airfare I could…and I was set. Thanksgiving with Marilyn’s family!! Woo Hoo! Naturally, we decided that we would keep it a secret and not tell Marilyn that I was coming. The story was that my neice was bringing a friend to Thanksgiving dinner. For the next week, I was known as Alex-Chrissie’s friend.

The look on Marilyn’s face when she realized that I was standing in her kitchen was priceless. How wonderful it was to spend time with her. She has some amazing children that are growing up to be fantastic adults. What a pleasure it was to hang out with them again.

The rest of the weekend had us on the go the entire time. A wonderful late Thanksgiving gathering with neighbors, game night with friends, time at the gym, go, go, go. What fun!

The final evening, Saturday night, was meant to be spent dining at my favorite italian restaurant, The Blue Parrot. It is never a matter of IF we would go there while I was home, it is always WHEN will we go. So…Saturday night it was. “But first, Mary, we need to stop at the family farm and see our brother and his family. A second brother might be joining us too. So we will gather at the farm and anyone who wants to caravan to the restaurant will join us there. ” Perfect…let’s go.

We were met at the farm by a house full of people. Brothers, sister-in-laws, neices, kids, friends… “This is the part, Mary, where we admit that we really aren’t going to The Blue Parrot. This is your night…a party for you”. It took a moment for her brain to register what was really going on. Again…the look on her face was priceless.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were all spent with friends and family that were involved in planning and organizing the surprise party. I cannot believe that with all that interaction noone spilled the beans, or even dropped a small hint. Can you imagine…I was going to surprise Marilyn on Thanksgiving Day, so I couldn’t tell her I was coming…but we needed to tell Marilyn about the surprise party for Mary, and we needed her to help make some arrangments, but we couldn’t tell her that I was part of planning the party…the neighbor was being invited to”join us at the italian restaurant for dinner” so he had to act the part of following us to the restaurant…my neice had to decorate the farm house, so had to make an uncharacteristic excuse for not carpooling with us…but… My brain hurt.