A Girl and Her Dog

This past week was Jim's annual motorcycle trip with the guys. So Kirby and I have been hanging out taking care of the house. Kirby is definitely Jim's dog, and goes into moping mode whenever he is gone. He sits on the couch in the conservatory gazing mournfully at the garage as if he could conjure up Jim's presence just by wishing it so. It is pathetic. For the first few nights he didn't even sleep with me. I guess he thought Jim might sneak in while he was upstairs. Finally he decided our bed was a better place to be than the couch. Jim gets home today, so I know the pooch will be ecstatic and will quickly get over his funk.

My sister came and stayed two nights with us, and that was fun. We went out to eat, shopped and enjoyed the Missouri Botanical Garden on a particularly beautiful June day. We also went through a box of photographs that I had taken out of mom and dad's photo albums after dad died. I have been sorting them into bags for each of my siblings, but there are some I know that we all might want to have copies of. Kathy helped with the sorting. Now I have a bunch of scanning to do. Bleh. But I also have a batch of photos to take over to Cincinnati for the family reunion, so that will be fun.

Katie is now in Barcelona for a few days. She called yesterday to let me know that she and Megan had arrived safely. In a few short days I will be picking her up at the airport. Can't wait to see all of her pictures and videos, and hear all about her adventures!

Thoughts on Father's Day

This is a very unusual Father's Day. Just like Mother's Day, we have no children here to celebrate the day with. But that is not bad since there is no dad here to celebrate with either. Jim is off on his annual epic motorcycle trip. I was surprised that they picked this week due to Father's Day occurring this weekend. Not so much from Jim's perspective, but the other three guys are all dads as well.

I guess I will be up for the bad daughter-in-law of the year award because I forgot to send Jim's dad a card. I have never forgotten before, so I will blame it on the fact that we were not making any Father's Day plans around here to tickle my memory. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! I will call Jerry tonight and hope that a phone conversation makes up for my memory lapse on the card.

I find myself thinking about my own dad today, in part because of finally completing the book I was writing about his time period in the war. But also my cousin posted a really heart wrenching story on Facebook this morning written by a man whose dad died at a fairly young age. There were lots of things they wanted to do together, planned during a period when they thought they had all the time in the world. I feel that way about my mom, since she died when I was only 33. But we got to have my dad a lot longer than that, so I was blessed that way.


Dad

You held my hand
to keep me grounded
You let it go
So I could fly
I held your hand
as you lay dying
Then let it go
So you could soar

Happy Birthday!

Saturday was Katie's 20th birthday, and she was celebrating all right. Just not with her parents. She is in Prague for five weeks with a global marketing class, but has been taking side trips each weekend. Therefore she turned 20 in the French Riviera instead of St. Louis. So for the first time in 20 years, I was not with my girl on her birthday.

That got me thinking about birthdays in general. When it is our birthday, we tend to think only about ourselves. After all, it is OUR day. But we don't stop to think about the woman who made it possible for us to have a day to celebrate. On the birthday of each of my children I always flash back to the day they were born. There was the pain, of course. Whoever said you forget the pain is a filthy liar. But there was also the awe of holding that baby for the first time, counting the fingers and toes. Katie was whisked away from us almost immediately because she was born with a collapsed lung. She spent several days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and I was alone in my room. It made me wonder how women who had lost their babies coped, because my arms felt so empty without her. But all those babies in the NICU, some so critically ill! We very quickly realized how lucky we were that Katie's illness was so minor.

Twenty years ago I was a very blessed new mom. And today I thank God for the lovely young woman I am proud to call my daughter. Happy birthday, Katie!