memories

Ashes To Ashes

Posted on January 2, 2012 Written by Tonya

Each time the topic of what to do with my parents comes up, I freeze. I don’t have any deep thoughts on the subject, I just become mute.

My sister would much very like to scatter their ashes somewhere special, a place where we could go and “visit” them, she says. A place that is quiet and just for them and us, too. A memorial with a plaque or bench that would allow us to pause and reflect and remember.

Sounds peaceful, right?

I understand the importance of establishing a permanent memorial to help us deal with the continued cycle of loss, but I like them being on the top shelf in my closet, side by side greeting me each and every morning.

As strange as it may sound seeing their urns and knowing that they are there is comforting.

But I suppose she’s right, it would be nice to have somewhere to go.

But where?

Arizona might be appropriate. They loved the desert (even in the dead of summer) and all of our fondest memories of them are of our time there together in their home in Tucson. Selfishly though, how often would we get out there to reflect?

Although they weren’t water people, I have always thought being scattered at sea would be pleasant/romantic/circle of life-ish, but apparently there are all sorts of regulations and somehow that doesn’t feel right either.

Most couples have special places that they enjoy being together, but I can’t think of where that might be for my mom and dad.

My aunt once suggested somewhere near the college campus where they met, but that doesn’t make sense to me. Canyon, Texas was definitely a pivotal location in their history, but it was only a starting point for all the amazing things they did.

My parents spent almost 30 years living in far away places; Asia, Africa, South America and not one of them stands out as their proper resting place.

As much as I would like to help my sister through her grieving process, I hope it’s okay that they just hang out in my closet for a little while longer. Plus, I have visions of them attending her wedding someday.

Reflections

Posted on December 31, 2011 Written by Tonya

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. – Thomas Paine

As I took down our Christmas decorations yesterday, I thought about my year. As always, it was full of ups and downs, sweet memories and milestones, moments I wish could have lasted forever and days that I would never want to relive. All I could think is I hope 2012 has more of the same. Well maybe a few more ups than downs.

One of the many reasons I love having a blog is the chronicling of my life, which in large part revolves around my sweet boy, Lucas. Letters For Lucas is a place where I can share my thoughts and receive an abundance of support, no matter what the subject matter.

My 2011 recap would not be complete without mentioning my weekly series, Letters For You, which I launched in September. I am so proud to host this series and I’m constantly overwhelmed by its warm response.

This year, I attended my first two blog conferences and was finally able to meet many of the women that have meant so much to me in the blogging world and am pleased to now call IRL (in real life) friends.

I enjoyed going back and re-reading my 2011 posts and had a lot of fun choosing these photos and my favorites, all that I feel sum up my year.

Click each photo to find my favorite Letters For Lucas post from that month.

Please enjoy and however you choose to ring in the new year, be blessed.

Linking up with some of my favorite bloggers and their awesome, I-wish-I-had- thought-of-that link ups:

Happy New Year, everyone!

Memories

Posted on December 29, 2011 Written by Tonya

How far back do your memories go? Can you remember being two or three years old? Do you really remember or have you just studied photographs and heard the same stories over and over again?

I often wonder what Lucas will recall when he thinks back on his childhood.

Will he remember…

from time to time that his mom had black nail polish?

that every time a Dave Matthews Band song plays I ask him, “who sings this?” and giggle at his response?

that I’m always a couple minutes early to pick him up from preschool?

that I wear an “angel baby” necklace almost every day and my sister has a matching one?

how the song In My Life makes me cry because it reminds me of my father?

how his dad makes the majority of our meals because I’m a complete oaf in the kitchen?

how I may get so frustrated with him that I want to poke my eyes out with forks but the minute I am away from him I yearned to be near him again?

that in our house objects are not “it” but “he” and “she”?

that I’d be lost without my friends and the ones that have children I hope he grows up to be friends with too?

that his dad wakes up with him every morning so that they can spend a couple of hours together before he has to go to work?

Will he remember the Christmas morning we spent with his cousins, Annabelle and Francesca and the joy he exuded being chased around his aunt and uncle’s house, or…

“playing” the piano?

sitting in our laps to hear the book Purplicious three dozen times?

play dates with new friends with far cooler toys than his?

Visiting Nichole (In These Small Moments) and meeting her children, Katie and Matthew - December 23, 2011

meeting Fireman Steve and sitting in a fire truck?

Fireman Steve, Annabelle, Lucas and Francesca at the Moraga/Orinda Fire Station - December 26, 2011

Whatever Lucas recalls, I pray he remembers feeling special, adored and happy.

She Knows

Posted on December 8, 2011 Written by Tonya

Bound, determined and ready to deck the halls for the holidays this year, I dug out our Christmas decorations just after Thanksgiving; two enormous plastic containers buried under a box of clothes Lucas has outgrown, two boxes of books and a duffel bag full of tools.

It has been four years since we’ve decorated our home for the holidays. You can read why here (!).

As I carefully unwrapped each ornament, it was like seeing long lost friends for the first time in far too long. My mind flooded back to the time and place I had been given or purchased the ornament and my heart smiled; a small wooden Pinocchio from our trip to Florence, several miniature Eiffel Towers, a porcelain rocking horse and my alma mater mascot.

I laid all the decorations out on the guest bed and put a stack of flattened tissue paper back inside one of the containers. In doing so, I found a plastic bag containing a beautiful holiday table cloth my mother had given me. I pulled the table cloth out of the bag, shook in out and in the folds discovered something that had been missing for almost 10 years: a stocking handmade by my grandmother when I was six months old.

I swore my mom had it packed away with her holiday treasures and she was adamant I had it in mine.

All this time, she was right.

I wanted so badly to pick up the phone in that moment and call her and tell her I had found it.

My mother died four years ago so that’s a phone call I’ll never be able to make. Somehow though, I think she knows. She has always known.

We put up our tree last weekend and hung the stocking from the fireplace mantle with care.

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop Prompt 1.) Have you decorated your Christmas tree? Share a favorite Christmas ornament.

Natalie (Mommy of a Monster) and I want to see your children’s photos with Santa , so link up to our Santa Photos 2011. There are some awesome prizes to win!

A Hundred Hearts

Posted on December 5, 2011 Written by Tonya

Lucas is 2 1/2 years old today and they were right. I was warned. Everyone that said it goes by fast. By it, of course, I mean childhood…. mine, yours and especially our children’s.

One minute it was just Todd and I and the next we became a family by bringing home our newborn son. Fast forward in lightening speed time, we began celebrating all of his amazing milestones and he soon turned one and then two and now attends preschool, sleeps in a twin bed, lives on macaroni ‘n cheese and has begun asking us all sorts of inquisitive questions about the world around him.

Right before our eyes Lucas has turned into a little person… a wonderful, thoughtful, strong-willed, energetic little person.

I constantly search for the pause button and desperately try my best to stay present so that I don’t miss a moment of his childhood.

I want to remember these days of sweet innocence and discovery forever.

A hundred hearts would be too few
To carry all my love for you.
– Author Unknown

Linking up with Galit (These Little Waves) and Alison’s (Mama Wants This) Memories Captured.

The photo above was created using picnik.

Some Days

Posted on November 11, 2011 Written by Tonya

Some days the sadness wins and you just can’t fight it.

Some days the questions outweigh the answers.

Some days there are more tears than smiles.

Some days it would be so much easier to pull the covers way up over your head and stay in bed all day long.

Some days holding on to the past is more comfortable than being in the present or looking forward.

Some days the thought of looking anyone in the eye is too much to bear.

Some days all you feel like doing is curling up with a box of donuts and throwing yourself a pity party.

Some days your spirit is so broken that you can’t remember the last time you laughed.

Some days feel so completely out of control that all you can do is breathe from one moment into the next.

Some days there are not enough distractions and too many memories.

Some days, thankfully, there is this:

Some days are better than others.

If you find yourself in hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill

Dear Sherri

Posted on October 25, 2011 Written by Tonya

It’s no secret that I adore Sherri and her blog, Old Tweener.

Sherri is the mother I hope to be someday and she writes the way I hope to write someday. Her words are moving and eloquent, pull at my heart strings and make me appreciate every moment I have right now with Lucas. She reminds me that childhood is fleeting and children grow up way too fast.

I am thankful that I can call Sherri a friend and I am so pleased to have her here today with a beautiful letter to herself on the day she became a mother.

May 28, 1994

Dear Sherri,

Today was an amazing day in your life: the day you became a mother for the first time. We haven’t met yet, but we have a lot to talk about.

You see, I am the mother you will be after almost 18 years of parenting.

That baby boy in your arms right now seems so fragile, so helpless, and incredibly needy. Don’t worry; you’ll figure him out pretty quickly. In time, you will get to know him so well that you can almost read his mind.

Until he’s a teenager, anyway.

Once he starts talking, he will rarely stop. In fact, many of your days with him will seem like one very long question. But please listen to him, answer his questions as best you can, and really try to soak up these moments when he’s so chatty and inquisitive.

Even when you want to stock up on earplugs and convince him that the dog is smart enough to answer his science questions.

Because when he moves on to college one day his words will be few. A funny text every few days, maybe a phone call on Sundays; his voice deep and full of joy.

And you will be glad you listened when you did.

Kiss him and hug him; tickle his little feet and hold his chubby little hands. Blow some raspberries on his round little tummy and nibble on his soft baby neck.

Once he’s too old for this you will wish you’d done it more.

When he’s older, hugs will be replaced by high-fives and pats on the back, at least in public.

Those eighteen years will pass in a heartbeat or two.

Today in the hospital, as you hold that sweet little bundle in your arms I realize it’s hard to understand this part. But your job as his mother is to make yourself obsolete. Nurture him, teach him, and love him relentlessly.

But prepare to let him go.

And then do it.

Because when you do send him off to college one day he will be fine on his own. He will be able to solve his own problems; right his wrongs, make decisions, and find his own way.

And he’ll be so ready for it.

You will be fine, too…trust me, I know this for a fact now.

So get back to learning how to be a mother, how to read his cries, and what he needs from you. Be patient because it’s going to take some time.

But it’s going to seem like it took no time at all.

Love,

Sherri

We Remembered

Posted on October 18, 2011 Written by Tonya

We remembered.

We avoided eye contact at first.

We got dressed and put on make-up.

We went to brunch and toasted with champagne.

We enjoyed a little retail therapy and indulged in sweet treats. Both helped for a little while.

We received dozens of beautiful flowers and at least a 100 of other tokens of love and well wishes throughout the day in the form of phone calls, text messages, Facebook and Twitter posts. Each one helped immensely.

We listened to their favorite music and smiled.

We talked about the year ahead and what they would be missing.

We drew animals and painted shapes with Lucas and giggled.

We sat around the dining room table and devoured the comfort food my husband prepared. There were more toasts.

We looked through the sympathy cards we were sent four years ago. Many I had not read before. All of them heartfelt.

We went to a movie and sat side by side in the dark and laughed in all the same places.

We hugged.

We cried.

We remembered.

Another anniversary come and gone.

The Hole In My Heart

Posted on October 14, 2011 Written by Tonya

October used to mean feeling Fall in the air and spying Halloween merchandise on every aisle at the supermarket and being greeted by big shinny round pumpkins with glowing smiles on my neighbors front porches.

October meant the nights were getting longer and the air a little cooler. Not quite flannel jammies time, but close.

Conversations about how to spend Thanksgiving begin and Christmas shopping lists are started in October.

Now October has a new meaning.

In particular October 15, but the days leading up to it and the days preceding are tough too.

October 15 used to have no significance to me at all, just another day on the calendar.

Now it marks the anniversary of my parents’ death.

Today they have been gone for four years. 1460 days. It’s hard to believe it has been that long.

I dread the anniversary the most; more than their birthdays, more than Christmas, more than Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or their anniversary. The day I was notified my parents had died was the worst day and every October 15, I relive it. And every year I think it’s going to be a little easier, and it’s not.

I’ll never forgot sitting in my friend Suzy’s kitchen two weeks after the memorial service and watching her eyes fill with tears as she talked about her own father’s passing as if it happened the day before. He had died 30 years earlier.

In some ways this was strangely comforting to me; knowing I wasn’t alone in my grieve for a lost loved one and in other ways it made me even sadder than I already was. I realized this wasn’t something I was going to “get over”, I realized that death is as permanent as grieve and I would have to learn to live with this emptiness, the loss and the hole that was now forever in my heart.

I would have to live with the sadness each and every October and all the days in between.

Catalina Island, July 2005

One good thing occurred on October 15, 2008 on the one year anniversary, I told my sister I was six weeks pregnant with Lucas.

Adding To Our Family

Posted on October 5, 2011 Written by Tonya

The last time I owned a pet (other than a fish), I was 13. 32 years ago today (!) my family got a puppy.

The day we brought Licorice home, October 5, 1979.

Part Labrador, part Poodle and way before they were called Labradoodles, Licorice was black with a little patch of white fur on her chest. She was sweetest and smartest dog I’ve ever been around.

Running along the ocean was one of Licorice’s favorite activities and we had to spell the word beach or she would go bonkers.

Despite sleeping at the foot of my bed, to be fair Licorice was my mother’s dog. We had her for six years and when we moved, we gave her to some friends that lived down the street.

My mother and Licorice, circa 1982

It’s time for another dog.

My husband STRONGLY disagrees.

ARGUMENTS FOR GETTING A DOG:

We’ve been wanting to add to our family. A pet would be a perfect addition teaching Lucas responsibility and giving him a wonderful life long playmate.
We have a large backyard with plenty of room for a pooch to roam.
I don’t think a more unconditional love exists than the one between a dog and it’s owner. Even when you’re feeling (and acting) miserable, they still love you.
Lucas really like dogs, although to be honest (much to my chagrin), he seems like more of a cat person. WE WILL NOT BE OWNING A CAT!! EVER.
I love to walk and vow to be in charge of this daily (and nightly) activity.
Extra security… for when my husband travels.
Opportunity to give a dog a second chance by adopting or saving a pound puppy.
Who could resist these precious faces?

Image courtesy of Pinterest. Click image for source.

Image courtesy of Snowesti. Click image for source.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST GETTING A DOG:

Discovering my favorite shoes chewed to smithereens.
We can’t even potty train our son, how would we ever potty train an animal?
No more spontaneous (or the other variety) trips – kenneling is expensive.
Vet care, food, toys, bedding, treats, etc. are also expensive.
Training. Ugh!
Shedding. Sigh.
Poop.
Saying good-bye is inevitable.

Okay, he may have won this argument… for now.

What do you think? Do you own a dog? What love and hate about pet ownership?

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop, 1.) Share a disagreement you’re having with someone and let your readers be the judge!

Ashes To Ashes

Related Posts:

Memories

Related Posts:

She Knows

Related Posts:

A Hundred Hearts

Related Posts:

Some Days

Related Posts:

Dear Sherri

Related Posts:

We Remembered

Related Posts:

The Hole In My Heart

Related Posts:

Adding To Our Family

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

What I Write About