Girls, Girls, Girls

        Without question, this is the quickest ...hellofuzzy... update I've ever posted, but today's events have filled my heart and brought my summer days closer to a happy ending by spending the afternoon watching two young women celebrate life while loving each other just as much as they did when they could barely see over the porch rails of this little play house.  My afternoon today with Brittany and Allison prefaced by a stop in Cookeville to see Kori and Tucker earlier in the week has reminded me why I became a teacher, found my home in Tazewell, and am grateful for the opportunity to watch one giggly girl, one almost athlete, and a creative genius grow up and become all that God has intended for them to be.  They are three of many, but through the years, they are three of my many loves who have kept in touch, shared milestone moments, and allowed me to photograph them along the paths their lives have taken.

        I didn't know them before they turned ten.  I had no clue they even existed until they started fifth grade at SMMS.  By keeping the score book for Junior Pro basketball, I got to know a group of kids who remain close to my heart many years after those Saturday mornings of blowing whistles, enthusiastic huddles, and double dribbles.  I've tried to decipher exactly why it is that we became so close, and my analysis is actually quite simple.  I think I'm one of the few adults they ever met who didn't know their parents.  I must  have seemed like some creature from another planet.  I didn't know Steve Malone was an "eye doctor", had no clue Danny England existed much less had a car lot, and the only flower shop I had ever used was Henry's in Middlesboro.  They quickly taught me about their families while I tried to make mental notes about the importance of NASCAR, University of Tennessee sports, and nail polish that changed colors with one's body temperature. 

        Their 8th grade class was filled with girls during their particular year.  Only two boys managed to make the list, and oh, how they endured torture.  Endless conversation about all things frilly, such as the first ever formal dance at SMMS (in my tenure at least).  And in their group, there was Eddie.  Eddie was a curly haired, brown eyed, brilliant boy, and he lived to grade Allison's papers.  He just wanted her to miss one question so he could strike a red mark across her paper thus sending her into fits of displeasure.  He seldom got to use his red pen, but in turn, his paper presented Allison with no chance to strike red either.  They were two of a kind, but their lives couldn't have been more diverse if scripted to be that way.  When Saint Valentine's Day rolled around, Brittany led the brigade to make Eddie feel loved.  I stopped at WalMart and bought a box of Hello Kitty Valentines, and the girls all filled them out with notes of affection for their rotten Eddie.  He entered class to find a bag filled with love that day, and I'm pretty sure that's the only time he ever blushed in his entire life.

        My connection to Kori goes back to that red dirt that runs through my veins.  Her older sister, Tracy, was suspicious of my hire at Tazewell Speedway, but the fact that I knew Kori gave me a little credit upon my arrival in "the tower."  After two seasons of working beside Tracy, God called her home too soon, and my attention to Kori's life became more focused because I was here to watch her grow, go to prom, get married, and now become a mother.  I'm so fortunate, and I do not take one single step of her life for granted.  She is beautiful, smart, and painfully funny.  She has been from the first time I met her, and each characteristic of her being seems to fill my heart with each simple text message, Facebook update, or email she sends.  Tucker has no clue what he's in for.  He will be a momma's boy, but they will re-define the term in methods no one has experienced to date. 

       As Brittany opened her gifts today, she narrated the event in the same voice she has had all her life...at least as long as I've known her.   She was attentive to each detail and was so thankful for every one's generosity.  Her spirit is unlike any girl I've ever met.  I don't think she has an "off" button, and like, Tucker, Baby Ethan has no idea what he's in for when he meets his mother.  I have visions of Brittany being the ultimate sports mom.  She'll have shirts with his jersey number and then his name is Swarovski crystals.  Woe be unto the first referee who ever calls a penalty on Ethan...or Tucker for that matter. 

       My mom raised me to believe boys aren't as smart as girls; she's on to something there. : )  With every group of students who leave my classroom in May, I can accurately predict the future for each.  I envision graduations, celebrations, academic accomplishments, athletic domination, and happiness fulfilled.  Brittany, Kori, and Allison have always shared life's moments with me, and today, I have realized that the little awkward tween girls I met so long ago are honest to goodness grown women who are making this world a better place one milestone at a time. 

      They are just three of 19 years' worth of students I've met while enforcing the importance of grammar and punctuation.  I will be writing about more of you in the blogs ahead.  I was so emotional leaving Brittany's baby shower today, and I had to rush home and put my thoughts to fuzzy.  Despite the frustrations that come with my career choice, there is no more of a rewarding work to be done on this earth than to be a teacher.  This is the perfect time of year for me to be reminded of that fact. 



The Other "Woman"

     August 3. I find myself remembering and wishing in a child like sense.  As I write this, I have a decision to make; today can be sad thus making it all about me, or today can be humble thus making it all about him. There is this day, and there will always be this day.  Today is his fifty-second birthday.  In the beginning, I thought it was appropriate to be silent, to give the impression I have put all the pieces back together, to ignore the obvious.  Now, 1,186 days later, I have accepted that being silent isn't an option for me.   Last fall, an acquaintance suffered a similar heart ache, and I found myself feeling connected to someone I knew but didn't know well.  Thanks to a common love of flying red clay mud and technology, she has become my friend.  She reads my thoughts and other women who've known these days do, too.  We're not alone in our baby steps toward exhaling.  We know God holds our hands, but we help each other in a very quiet yet powerful manner.
    He never considered his birthday to be a big deal, and I couldn't understand why.  I never told him why I cared so much about the day; I never thought about my explanation before he wasn't here to listen. I always acknowledged but never truly explained. I'd buy cute, flirty cards to mark the day.  I should have written my own words instead.   My explanation is simple. Without his birth, I would have never known the purest yet briefest joy of my life.  I can't give the day of his passing any more power than it already holds on my happiness.  I have to focus on the events that eventually brought him to me instead of the tragedy that took him away.  I have to rise above grief because if I give in to it, all the work my mother did to teach me about our faith is a loss.  It is because I believe what she taught me that I have made peace with him not being here to celebrate on this particular day.  We'll celebrate again when I meet him there.
    In my daily accomplishments of  exhaling, stepping ahead, and acknowledging truth, I found these two photos which I had forgotten existed.  If he were here, I couldn't share them with you. He'd never live these down.  I came to my keyboard with an option of making doom and gloom permanent on this day or giving you a reason to smile.  I chose the latter.     
   We were married for a year and a half when Alley came into our lives.  While outside piddling in the yard, he heard "voices" from inside the central heat and air unit in September 2004, and he took the encasing off to find three kittens whose eyes were barely open.  He burst through the kitchen door like Opie Taylor after winning a baseball game and dragged me outside (I'm not much of one for the outdoors).  There on the front porch wiggled three gray kittens in a pile.  They couldn't walk, but they could wiggle and scream. I was not a cat person.  I looked around the yard, and there was no sign of a momma.  Then, I looked at his face and saw a smile I had never seen before.  He couldn't stop patting their heads, and when he did, they'd bob up and down like floaters attached to a fishing line being teased by a crappie.   In my memory, that is what happy will always look like.  We fed them some milk from a medicine dropper, and they lapped it up.  They fell asleep, and we put them in a whelping box under the tree in our front yard.  He was worse than a kid waiting on Santa.  Back and forth with a flashlight he'd go to the box throughout the night. I can still see him shuffling out of the bedroom in his Snoopy pajama pants.  During the night, the momma came back and got two of them but left one.  The one left behind made her way into our house within a matter of nanoseconds... a passenger in the pocket on his t-shirt, and she has been here ever since.  He named her Alley, and for years, she was the other woman in this house.
      In a matter of weeks, I felt as though I was a third wheel in their relationship.  He fed her with a bottle, and she grunted while she drank it.  She sat on his shoulder and slept while he watched TV Land.  She greeted him at the door upon his arrival and sat with him while he ate dinner.  She looked at me as if I were always in the way.  I shudder to think about what she would have told me had she been able to speak.  Her smirk, her squinty eyes, her proud prance around this house made me nuts.  In spite of my jealousy,  they together were a sight to behold. 
      I came home from work in spring to find them outside.  As I putted my little car up the driveway, I thought, "That's not what I think it is."  It was.  It was purple, and it was a leash.  Not only was he carrying a leash, but Alley was connected to it by wearing a matching harness.  I sat in my car under the carport in disbelief.  He had gone over the edge.  He had finally snapped.  This was it.  The laughter I heard as I got out of my car was like that of a small child watching a circus.  He knew he had pushed me over the edge, but he knew I'd love the scene, too.  He loved being outside more than in the confines of walls.  That is another reason I know he's o.k. now; there are no walls to hold him  there.  From the time he got home until the street lights came on, he stayed outside and he wanted Alley with him.  She'd sit in the living room window and give him  a pathetic sad face to indicate her disapproval of him being away from her.  She'd get mad being stuck inside with me and pout until doing so convinced him to come inside early.  He rescued her from misery, and then he thought to put her on a leash.
      If you look closely at the first picture, you can see his smile stretching across his face with the effort to stretch farther.  He knew he had stepped outside of a box, but in doing so, he made her happy and himself jubilant.  I imagine he smiled like this when he blew out candles as a child.  Yes, he put Alley on a leash, and they enjoyed the outdoors together.   He sat in his chair whittling cedar one Marlboro after the next while she sat in front of him nibbling on blades of grass.  I'd peek around the corner and watch the show when I could do so without getting caught.  In time, he finally let me take pictures.  Again, I find myself beyond thankful for my cameras.
      And now, the pictures remain and bring me so much happiness.  I laugh hysterically when I pull these two up.  He just put a cat on a leash.  I now bring the cat in here to command central of Cedar Fork, show her the pictures and talk to her like I expect her to respond and acknowledge how cute they were together.  I'm silly enough to hope she remembers him, and I'm smart enough to know that's not possible.  And to think I thought HE was nuts.  She plays along.  She keeps me company.  She never leaves my side and she meets me at the door when I return.  She sleeps beside me while snuggled up to the end of his pillow that still smells like a mixture of motor oil and smoke (I will NEVER wash it; feel free to judge my cleanliness),  and she earns her keep; we haven't had a mouse in this house yet.  I have become the crazy cat lady, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
       So, in closing, these pictures will serve as this year's birthday for us from him.  As I've written before, I hope Heaven is the place where we will finally escape technology, so I don't expect this blog to travel that far.  All this time, my loved ones have consistently worried about my well being.  Today, I can tell you that peace "which passeth all understanding" resides in this house with Alley and me.
     Take time to record your life and make back up files.  The photos that will matter the most are the ones that come from a moment's notice instead of months of planning.  There is no need to make hundreds; just make a few and make them priceless.
       Happy birthday, Pic, with love from Alley and me.