Honest Scrap

Cait's Mom at A Fifth Season chose me for the Honest Scrap award. I'd pick her back if I could. Her comments on "everything happens for a reason" and on Down syndrome being only two reasons why.

The rules are:
Choose a minimum of 7 blogs you find brilliant in content or design. Show the 7 winners’ names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they have won the Honest Scrap award.

Here are my 7 (comments to come):
Cover Her Briefness in Singing
Demeter's Feet
Ezra's Space
Happy Sad Mama
I Lost a World
Surviving the Day
Tuesday's Hope

List at least 10 honest things about yourself

1. The first thing you should know is that I'm terrible at things like this because I overanalyze the task/question. To be honest, does it have to be deep or important or can it simply be a statement of fact? Does it mean things nobody knows about me? Should they be things I don't like to admit? That said, here are my other nine.
   
2. Before Henry got sick and everyone kept telling me how strong I was, I kind of liked thinking of myself as a strong person. I learned that having your strength tested sucks. Whether or not I was strong, I didn't want to have to be strong.
3. I have toe thumbs.
   
4. I hate being shy. I've gotten better, but I still struggle with it.
5. When my yoga teacher said repeatedly, "Yoga can change your life," during my first ever class years ago, I rolled my eyes. But it did, and I miss it.
   
6. Lately I love running, or to be fully honest, I love the me time running affords me and knowing I'm getting in shape and the way I feel after a run.
   
7. The ocean is in my blood, and if I go too long without being near it, I get off balance.
8. I can get very grumpy, downright mean, when I'm hungry.
   
9. I often think of Henry's life in terms of my garden. He was born just after our last planting. We were able to pick lettuce when we brought him home. He sat in the stroller while we picked strawberries. My mother-in-law babysat while I picked blueberries. I made peach jam with my neighbor while waiting for an Early Intervention visit. He was in the hospital for most of tomatoes and all of squash and leaf raking. This is how I mark time.
   
10. I am slowly starting to find out what is happening in my friends' lives after two years of focusing on my baby or my grief.

Love Like an Ocean

I got back yesterday from a few days visiting my parents. I grew up on the coast, spending every weekday at the beach every summer of my childhood. It wasn't until I grew up and moved away that I realized just how lucky I was. The ocean soothes me, calms me, sets me straight. If I go too long without seeing it, smelling it, feeling its rhythm, I get out of balance. So it was good to be there.

We went to the beach each of the three full days I was there and I soaked it all up. I played cold in the water with my nieces. I found periwinkles and crab shells and feathers with them. I ate sandy sandwiches with lemonade. And I walked with Kathleen up and down the beach when she got fussy. I thought about last year on the 4th of July when I walked up and down the beach with my cousin's baby girl, just a tiny two-month-old bundle, how she nestled into me and fell asleep to the sound of the waves, and how I felt the need to hold her and walk with her, but how it made me cry because I hadn't had the chance to walk like that with my baby. Henry never made it to the beach, though he heard about the ocean from me so much. Walking with my cousin's baby last year was a reminder of so much that had never been and never would be. Walking with Kathleen this year reminded me of that too, but also of what is and what is yet to be. In summers to come she will play in the sand and the sea, she'll take walks with her grampy and make sand castles with her nana. The tides will continue to flow in and out. The ocean will continue to stretch out its endless blue expanse. And my love will swell like the waves and stretch beyond where you can see for Henry and for Kathleen.

***

Henry out and about:

• At dinner while I was visiting my family, my brother-in-law commented that he thought Kathleen looked a lot like Henry. I see it sometimes, certain expressions. A bit later, my niece said, "I miss Henry." I told her I missed him too. "But," she said, brightening, "now you have Kakaleen." From a grown-up, this would have bothered me, but from a five-year-old, I accept her thought process, her attempt to sort it all out.
• My cousin told me about his bird feeder and how a cardinal came and sat with them for a while last week.
  
• Last night at dinner, our friend's daughter wanted her dad to read to her. The book she picked was Hello, Henry. They had gone to the dump on Henry's birthday and visited the book discard area, where they found half a dozen Henry books, including this one, one of their daughter's current favorites.

***

Fourth of July

Kathleen 2009






Henry 2007