Moments

So much as happened since my last post and so much of that has been challenging: my grandmother died, I’ve been struggling with some family members subsequent behavior (and to be fair, they, mine) and my uncle’s fiancé Mitch (as we call her)  was diagnosed with blood cancer. Even the good stuff, such as Dave is in the last year of his R.N. degree or that we are in the adoption process, is challenging. But as I looked through the pictures for the blog, I realized that I have been allowing the big stuff to usurp the memories we had along the way. This summer Sam learned how to swim, play soccer, and shoot a bow and arrow. Every week of the summer, we spent with our cousin Claire and Co. at the West Seneca Parks Department tie-dying shirts, running obstacle courses, and making 25 cent crafts. Most every event included a cousin (or alternately Sam went with his cousins) to the beach, Renaissance Festival, Fantasy Island, the park, Erie County Fair, the zoo or to see Toy Story 3. An essay I wrote was published in the anthology Voices From the Herd: An Anthology For Buffalo, NY; I entered my first photo contest and those pictures were shown in a local gallery. I hung out with my Bestie Shannon on Keuka Lake. We laid in the sun, drank vodka, played scrabble, gossiped and watched bad movies as if it were 20 years ago and we didn’t have a care in the world. Later in the summer, Dave, Mom and I rented a cottage (and Uncle Billy rented a dock) at the South Buffalo summer bastion Sunset Beach. We had a great time launching toy torpedoes, throwing Frisbees, building sand castles, punching waves and entertaining our buddies. And then if we hadn’t drunk enough of the South Buffalo kool-aid, Billy’s friend offered us one week at his cottage free! 


Even in the midst of the difficult times, I witnessed rare moments: As Sam and I were playing Jaws and stalking Mitch and Danny along the shore, I noticed that while some people have adventures in far off places, my uncle was having his walking along the beach holding hands with his love after a round of chemotherapy. And at the hospital with my grandmother, her family paraded through her room to say their final goodbyes and then I watched as she passed away. And so I say, still in the fray of our challenges, God, it’s good to be loved and to have such memories.


There's 2 more new posts, so scroll on down.

We're Adopting!!!!

The home study is complete. The slide show above is of our Profile Book. This book will be shown to birth mothers. If one of them likes it, then we get a call to “come on down and be the next contestant…” We still have work to do. And so, I keep my head down and focus on the next bit of business in front of me. I don’t often allow myself to future trip about the baby; I have Sam for that. He’s already lined up my mom to babysit the baby during all his future birthday parties because there will be lots of swords and he doesn’t want the baby to get hurt--next bit of business: rent a 12^th century castle for Sam’s birthday party ;-). At his preschool, I noticed that one of his classmates had taped a photo of her family to her cubby, I asked Sam if he wanted me to put a picture of his family on his cubby. He replied, “Not until the baby comes because then everyone will be in it.”

If you would like to view the pages bigger, click here http://picasaweb.google.com/SamBones148/AdoptionProfile# or mouse over the slide show and then click on the round Picasa logo at the bottom of the viewer. Or if you would like more information about the agency we're using visit our agency's website AdoptionStar.

Grandma Betty

Because so many of my favorite people are well over the age of 60, my wisdom on death should be shored up and ready to flow from a veritable font onto the heart and mind of my child. But, when it comes to death, I’m far more petulant than wise. My reactions surprise me. When I saw at the wake that so many people were mourning my grandmother with much the same gusto as I was, I wanted to scream, “She was a bit of a hussy—don’t you think?” When had I needed to be my grandmother’s one and only? She did have this conspiratorial way that made me believe we were part of a covert cooperative in which she always had my back. Who knew she was so loose-lipped?


And before I could quell that reaction, Sam reported that people were telling him that Grandma Betty was in heaven or with Jesus. Instead of reacting as I hoped—grateful that others were offering my son comfort during a time when I was too busy to do it myself, I had to stifle myself from saying, “Who the hell told you that?” I wasn’t ready for her to be whisked away to the beyond with people beyond our knowing. I wanted her here in this time, in this place with these people. I had lapsed into my own unreality. If nothing else, death makes the real, unreal.


At her house, Sam took a cookie tin and filled it with candy, a sparkly earring, her cigarette case, a pack of smokes and a Betty Boop doll. We dug a hole in her backyard and put the tin there. I wanted the family to gather for when he covered it but this was his service. He asked his dad if they could bury the tin together. They did.


These days, Sam tells me about Grandma Betty, “She’s in Pretend Life with Grandpa Hawk.” He’s repeating back what I told him. Pretend Life is where I psychologically deposit all that can’t be encountered. A place to happily frolic in the imaginary. For instance, Harrison Ford is a Real Life actor but Indiana Jones who lives in Pretend Life can discover treasure. I didn't tell Sam about Pretend Life solely to make my grandmother mythical; rather, I needed (probably more than Sam) somewhere for her to exist to which I still have access. Sam speaks of her with such calm and comfort. I know I had little to do with that. It's as if the comfort he’s found and offers flows serenely from a font. And if I had to guess who helped him shore up that comfort…I might have to admit that it came from a covert cooperative; I did notice when Gram took a cookie from that tin, she gave it to him with a conspiratorial wink.