"Wild" Memorials

I just finished listening to the audiobook of Cheryl Strayed's memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.  If you're not familiar with the book, I definitely recommend it.  Strayed writes poignantly about what it's like to lose a parent to cancer when you're young.  I admired the honesty with which she confronts the reckless things she did in the wake of her mother's death, like destroying a marriage to a man she loved very much and getting briefly trapped in a cycle of heroin usage.  I was moved by her description of how spending a summer hiking the PCT alone helped her re-orient herself and come to terms with her losses, even though the real meaning of her experiences only began to make sense to her slowly over the course of time.

It also makes me envious.  Even though there were significant differences in our circumstances, I could relate to so many of the things Strayed said about losing her mom in her twenties.  But I just don't have the capacity to do what she did.  Our culture loves these grand narratives-- I loved my mother so much that I smashed up my life once I lost her, and then I took on a grand quest I was ill equipped to conquer and mastered it anyway!  Of course this is a best-selling memoir.  Of course its film rights were optioned by Reese Witherspoon before it was even published and it was selected to reprise Oprah's Book Club. If Witherspoon is not nominated for an Oscar for the film that comes out in December, I'll be shocked.  It will make a boatload of money.  Apparently it's not just our culture that loves this type of story, either-- the book has been translated into some unbelievable number of languages.  To respond to the loss of your parent so profoundly that it takes months of intense hiking to get back on track, and to then spend the next fifteen years of your life honing your craft as a writer so you are up to the challenge of documenting your feelings in an artful memoir-- that is the type of memorial to a beloved parent that everyone except Cheryl Strayed can only dream of creating.

It's not accurate to say I have no "self-destructive tendencies."  I believe I do have them, and they are always looming in wings the herculean tasks I am prone to taking on.  They're there in the big and little things-- when I refused to miss a single mile of training for a marathon, when I obsessively pumped milk before bed every night so Nora would never have to have a drop of formula, when I decided I needed to make an insanely ambitious quilt for my one year old with nothing more than a pattern, and when I left a well compensated job I liked to commit myself to a Master's degree and then doubled down to take on a PhD.  These are admirable ambitions, of course, but I know myself well enough to know that some element of my attraction to them comes from needing to push myself to the ultimate limit of my capabilities, whether or not that is a healthy or sound thing to do at that moment.  It's never "necessary" for me to sacrifice quite as much of myself as I do in these tasks.  At the end of my first semester of grad school, when one of my professors asked, "Liz, do you realize you're the only student who even attempted to read everything I assigned?" the honest answer was no.  It had not occurred to me that there was any other way.

But my self-destructive tendencies are judicious, not reckless. I am the type of person who will burn herself out but will never burn herself up.  To imagine myself in a circumstance where my estranged husband has to physically remove me from the home of a lover who has gotten me hooked on heroin?  This is just something I would never, ever do.  I could not do this, and I would not want to do this.  But you have to be the type of person who would do this, I think, to be the type of person who would then turn around and conquer thousands of miles of trail hiking to "get your life back together."  Strayed says this herself, more or less, when she acknowledges that without the "self destructive" behaviors, she never would have ended up on the trail, and so they were worthwhile. I find myself strangely envious of people who "get their lives back together" because I could never imagine letting my life "go" in the first place.  Somehow I have been conditioned to believe that the more self-destructive Strayed's behavior was in the aftermath of her mom's death, the more it proves she loved her mother.

The book has made me look at my life and think about how people would probably have to be told my dad died when I was young, or they wouldn't even know it.  I do not seem "troubled." I didn't "fall apart" in the months after he died.  If Strayed's inclination was to smash everything up in the wake of loss, my inclination was to work harder at putting the pieces together.  I didn't postpone my plans to get pregnant or take a semester off or ask for paper extensions.  I just did exactly what I would have done if my dad was still alive.  I wonder, or maybe I fear, whether this makes it look to other people like I wasn't profoundly impacted by this loss. I know loss is personal and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it.  But I'd like to be capable of some kind of grand gesture to memorialize my dad, and I'm just not.  Somehow that feels like a disservice to him.

But then I think about what my dad would have said, if you'd asked him, How is Liz going to react to your death?  He would have expected me to behave exactly as I did.  In the letter he had us read at his memorial, the thing he said about me was:

"Lizzie would hustle around the soccer field, one of the most natural scoring machines we could find, but was always relegated to defending the opponent's best scorer, because we knew she'd keep up and do the right thing."  

My dad described me in this way-- as the one who could be trusted to "keep up" and "do the right thing"-- because this is the way I am.  But it also works reflexively: I am this way because this is the way he spoke about me for as long as I can remember.  I understand this on an intellectual level, because I know, for example, that the legal code not only punishes "undesireable" behavior, but by coding certain behaviors as "undesireable," the laws also regulate the ways we imagine behaving in the world.  I can see, as a parent, that my daughter behaves the way I expect her to behave because the possibilities she imagines for herself are regulated by my expectations.  Some people don't behave the way their parents expect, but as far as I know, I always have-- just as I have always abided by laws.

I hope that what Strayed's book will do for me in the long run is not to make me envious of her capacity for memorialization-- but to make me more appreciative of my own, even though it is different.  While reflecting on her act of memorialization, I have tried to become more intellectually cognizant of the little ways I memorialize my dad all the time.  Some part of me believes that the type of memorialization he would have wanted most is not the grandest one, but the one of which I am most capable.  And what I have begun to realize is that I memorialize him in little ways he would have appreciated all the time.

Like this week, when I discovered that a lot of the archival and historical research I've done for my dissertation chapter on Josephine Herbst has already been published by someone else.  This devastated me-- I was crying my way through the book chapter, watching my own insights unfold before me in someone else's language.  Part of me felt like quitting, or at least taking a few days off to regroup, but the part of me that felt compelled to dig in and immediately set out to think harder-- that part of me is a result of and an honor to my dad.

Or when I find myself hitting "checkout" on a pair of black skinny jeans I don't really need, but which I have decided should count as a birthday gift to myself because the price is good-- that part of me is a result of and an honor to my dad, too.

When I stop at the grocery store to buy food for dinner before picking Nora up from school, and I find myself choosing drinks and cookies to give her teachers as an afternoon "thank you" snack-- that part of me is a result of and an honor to my dad, too.

When people ask me "What is wrong with her eye?" and I explain why Nora wears an eye patch, but I also can't help emphasizing how remarkable she is and how enthusiastically she embraces each new challenge-- that part of me is a result of and an honor to my dad, too.

Nobody will ever offer me a book advance to write about the ways I honor my dad because they're not very exciting.  No publisher is itching to sell Prime: Skinny Jeans from Amazon and Other Minor Self Indulgences.  But I think that's okay.  Even if my dad always did say he wanted to write a book, he ultimately decided to invest his energy and resources in other types of projects.  So maybe a book is not the way he would have wanted to be memorialized anyway.

But maybe I'm wrong.  I could see Reese Witherspoon starring in a movie about thank you gifts and skinny jeans.

Goodbye, Oscar

I've been meaning to write a blog post about Oscar all semester.  I wanted to explain how having his health in jeopardy has impacted me, our family, and my work.  But I guess I had been putting it off because I was hoping to be able to report good news about his recovery.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  About two weeks ago, Billy and I had to make the difficult decision to have him euthanized.  I tried to write this post about a week later, but I'm only managing to finalize it now.

As many of you probably know, dachshunds suffer from spinal disc issues because of their long stature.  Oscar's first spinal injury occurred when we were at the hospital for Nora's birth, but a single course of steroid treatment successfully rehabilitated his back.  This past July, he hurt himself again, but this time it was his neck that was pretty seriously injured. Another single course of steroid treatment seemed to heal him, but after a few weeks, it was clear that he was not back to normal.  After another course of steroid treatment, he was in even more pain than when it had started.  We became convinced that he was re-injuring his neck while on the steroid.

We considered surgery, but ultimately decided against it because it would have been very expensive, it would have put Oscar through a lot of additional stress, and even if it had successfully treated this disk injury, it wouldn't have done anything to prevent future injuries.  Billy did a lot of internet research on treatment options for dogs with intervertebral disk disease, and we learned that eight weeks of complete crate rest is recommended for dogs recovering from neck injuries.  We had to switch to a new vet, but we were able to find one who agreed to prescribe Oscar higher doses of anti-inflammatory and pain medications in hopes that we could keep him comfortable in the crate while giving his nerves the time they needed to heal.  In an attempt to speed his tissue recovery, we also had a tech from the vet's office come to the house for laser treatments 2-3 times a week.

This was a really difficult 8 weeks for us.  Oscar tolerated being in the crate, but he disliked it as much as you might expect.  It was stressful for us to be worried about his health, and keeping on top of his medication regiment required our constant attention.  We were able to stick with it, though, because he showed noticeable improvement from week to week.  With about two of the eight weeks remaining, we began to get very optimistic that he was healing enough to enjoy a happy life outside the crate, even if it was going to require serious limits on his mobility.

Unfortunately, Oscar was ultimately unable to tolerate life outside the crate.  Once he we let him out of the crate to move around, the pain began to return.  We spent a few weeks hoping that he would be able to acclimate to life outside the crate if we slowly increased the length of time he was allowed out, but this didn't work out as we'd hoped, either.  He wanted to be out, to play with Nora, and to sit on our laps.  But anytime we would let him out for more than 15 or 20 minutes, his head would slowly begin to drop lower and lower until we'd have to force him back in the crate to rest.  When that rest stopped helping him feel better, and the yelping pain returned at the end of his pain medication cycles, we decided that he had been through enough and we had to let him go.

It was hard to accept that the treatment regimen hadn't worked despite all the time, energy, and optimism we put into it.  It is difficult to feel like Oscar might be running around today if our vet had recommended crate rest when the injury first happened.  I find myself wishing we'd been more successful at limiting his mobility throughout his life.  Maybe he would have lived longer if he hadn't been allowed to go up and down the stairs or jump up on the couch.  But maybe not.  He was a healthy, happy, vivacious little guy up until the injury in July, and we did the best we could to help him recover, so it gives me a little bit of comfort to know that while he was alive, he was living the life he wanted to live.

I don't quite know how to describe how it feels to lose Oscar.  It's devastating. It's heartbreaking.  The house feels so... empty.  And quiet.  Billy and I got him a few months after we moved in together, so in essence, we have always had him.  He was a member of our family.  We both loved him dearly and loved watching our daughter fall in love with him, too.  He was so good to her.  He made us feel like a family when we were just two kids in our early twenties thinking about planning a life together.  He taught us lessons about being caretakers that have made us better parents to Nora.  He made our lives happier just by being in the house. Although we both had dogs growing up, neither of us was living at home when their lives ended.  This is the first time either of us has had to say goodbye to a beloved pet and adjust to life without him around. We're trying to take it one day at a time.  Each day I feel a little bit less pain about his death and I miss him a lot more.  So that sensation, at least, is all too familiar for me.

And while we have been sorting through our own feelings of loss about Oscar's death, we have also had to decide how to answer Nora's questions whenever she brings him up.  I hope to write a separate post at some point about how she is adjusting to his absence, but in the meantime, here's the short version: She is beginning to understand that he is gone for good, and she won't be able to see him again.  I feel like she misses him but is not fully capable of understanding what that feeling is or why she is experiencing it.  So we've been talking about "missing" and trying to help her understand.

We're thankful for all the love and support our family and friends have shown since we had to put Oscar down.  It is a bit reassuring to realize that everyone knew how important he was to us.  In closing, I wanted to share a few of my favorites among our more recent pictures with Oscar.

Ugh. I miss him.

Aunt Andy

Looking forward to my upcoming birthday is bittersweet this year because it will be the first time I do not share the birthday with my Aunt Andy, who recently passed away after fighting cancer as long as I can remember.  The influence she has had on my life would be impossible to calculate.  I haven't spent much time with her since I moved away from the west coast, but she was one of the few women I was around growing up who didn't fit the mold of stereotypical femininity and didn't care that she didn't.  I don't know if she would self identify as a feminist, but I count her among my earliest feminist influences because she had opinions, and she liked working, and she was a good mother to her boys, and she talked to me about the stuff I really liked even when it was nerdy and bookish.  She also gave me this outfit, which goes to show I have been sporting navy stripes, pattern mixing, and cuffing my pants since way back:

When I think about all the health complications my aunt endured for so many years, I am reminded of how angry it makes me when people say someone has "beaten cancer" or "won the battle against cancer."  I totally get that cancer remission is something to celebrate, but please call it "enduring the battle with cancer" or "surviving cancer," not "beating" it.  To position the living as the "winners" in the battle positions the dead as the "losers" by default, and I think that dishonors everyone who has experienced it.  My aunt, and dad, and grandpa did not "lose" a battle with cancer, even though it claimed their lives.  These are people who looked cancer in the face, handled the ways it destroyed their health with honor, persisted with the will to live despite the toll it took on them, and faced death with grace when they saw that the time was upon them.  They couldn't have "fought" any harder in order to "beat" cancer, and they were not "beaten" by it.  Hemingway gets it right when he says, "A man can be destroyed but not defeated." I am thankful to my Aunt Andy for helping to teach me that a woman can't be defeated, either.

That's my Aunt Andy in the gray t-shirt.  I'll think of her whenever my birthday approaches.  I'll think of her when I mix stripes with polka dots.  I'll think of her when I notice new gray hairs in my head because I can distinctly remember a conversation we had in which she told me dying your hair to cover them was lame.  I'm thankful she knitted a hat for the grandneice she never met and sorry Nora will not get to meet her.  And I know I'll think of her often as my nephew grows up and I try to figure out how to be the kind of aunt who makes him feel like who he is is good and right.

Rest easy, Aunt Andy.  Thanks for the life lessons and the kickass outfit.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today's my dad's birthday.  He loved his birthday and he made a huge deal about it every year.  He would've been 60.

Billy and I went to see Louis CK in Baltimore on New Year's Eve.  It was a perfect evening.  The mexican restaurant we ate at beforehand had delicious food, powerful and interesting cocktails (habanero infused Patron is the real deal), and seven options for made-to-order fresh guacamole.  Billy didn't think he liked avocado until he tasted it.  Billy and I had a great time being out alone together.  And Louis was great.  I laughed so hard my face actually felt sore the next day.

Louis makes me laugh so hard because he speaks to me right where I'm at.  His willingness to face the darker aspects of life head-on is always undergirded by an overall appreciation for the human experience that conveys a sense of flickering yet persistent optimism.  That's how I feel most of the time, too-- especially these past few years.  At some point midway through the set, Louie was talking about how being 45 means he's not too old yet because people would still be surprised if he died.  He said the cut-off for death shock value is 60.  If you die before 60 people act like you've been robbed, and it's a tragedy that you don't get to know your grandkids, but if you're over 60 people are like "Well that's pretty sad, but, you know... nobody lives forever..."  I started crying, thinking about my dad and how he didn't get to see his grandkids.  This was serious, true sadness about the profound absence I feel in my life and my heart, but somehow I was laughing hysterically at the same time.  I was thinking to myself, I really lucked out that he died at 58.  He maxed out the amount of time he got to live and I still get to play the "my dad died too young" card.  Two more years and people would've been thinking, "He didn't get to meet your kids?  Well he *was* 60, maybe you should've had your baby a little younger."  As I type this, I fear it's not going to come across as funny, except maybe to my brother or sister.  But I could just imagine my dad and I laughing through a conversation about how he really got the best of both worlds by dying at 58, about how somehow that number means he lived a full life but still died too soon.  Well played, Dad.  Well played.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  We miss you so much.  I wish you could see us all now.  I wish you could hold Everett, and see Nora running around hugging and kissing everyone and everything, and have a drink with Nate and Ashley at their pub, and talk to Vickie about poop explosions and penis reconstructions, and talk to Billy about moving up the management ladder at work.  I can't begin to list all the things I wish I could talk to you about.  I wish I could've read what your Christmas letter would've had to say about me passing my comprehensive exam and everything else that our family has accomplished this year.

I can't have that conversation, though, so instead I watched Dad's farewell message slideshow again.  He says about me, "Lizzie would hustle around the soccer field, one of the most natural scoring machines we could find, but was always relegated to defending the opponent's best scorer because we knew she'd keep up and do the right thing."

Keep up and do the right thing.  I try every day, Dad.

Heavy Silence

What do you call a witch hunt when it finds a witch? And how it feels to be George Hincapie right now but also for the past 15 years.

Blasting Carbonleaf, Mumford & Sons, and fun. in the car to calm Nora down when she's crying: good or bad parenting?

The fact that my students are capable of discussing a novel for 75 minutes with about 75% participation without a word out of my mouth: proof of merely excellent students, or excellent students and good teaching?

Billy's dominance at work and home, as evidenced by his always improving managerial and bottle washing skills.

How great it is to have Vickie in Baltimore and how Nora seems to think she is the B team Mom.

How Nate is taking care of business like a boss-- in life and in work-- and how the people of Bend are the lucky beneficiaries of this fact.

Speculation on how Ashley's influence on Nate manages to flare up in funny ways, like his willingness to pose in baby bump photos and post sweet captions to Instagram pics.

How hard Katie is killing it in our program and in the classroom, and how proud it makes me as her friend and fellow waitlister.

How Anne-Marie's anxiety about the uncertainty of parenthood manifests itself through stressing out over baby monitors, how I worry that my own struggles after Nora's birth might be adding to her stress unfairly, and how I know that by this time next year, she'll have it all under control.

Whether or not it is appropriate for me to psych myself up for my exam by doing the "rage" motion fans do when the A's closer comes in.

Which baseball team is the only one to have three golden glove winners, and how lame those trophies are given the prestige of the award.

The theoretical concept of "cruel optimism" and how I've been trying to use it to think through how I can improve my relationships.

These are all things I would've been talking to my dad about lately. Instead there's just this heavy silence.

Post Script

Vickie's comment on my post below about Papa's death reminded me of two notes of appreciation I meant to include there:
Without all of Vickie's help, I don't know how I would have managed to negotiate getting Nora across the country at the drop of a hat.  She is so good with Nora, and Nora loves her so much, that it was like traveling with someone who has trained to be my understudy.
And I owe Billy a big thank you, too, for understanding completely why we wanted to get on a plane immediately even though he couldn't join us, for being willing to be separated from Nora indefinitely so we could go, and for keeping things in order here at home while we were away.

Rest Easy, Papa

A week ago yesterday, my grandfather passed away.  Earlier that morning, Nora, Vickie, and I had arrived in his hospital room.  The night before, my Aunt Carrie had called to let us know that because his cancer was inoperable, he had elected to stop receiving dialysis treatments, so Vickie and I decided to take Nora with us to see him one last time and say goodbye.  It had only been a week before that that he'd been admitted to the hospital due to kidney failure, which had been the first sign that he was seriously ill.

I will always count it as one of the great fortunes of my life that we got to see him only a few months ago, when he was still feeling mostly like himself, and that we got to see him again last week to say goodbye.  Nora was sick during that trip in July, but I could still tell how much delight he took in being around her.  And when we walked into that hospital room last week, and he was visible excited as he said "Nora, Nora, Nora!" I have never been more proud of anything than I was to make him that happy.

During that morning visit, Papa was cheerful and peaceful.  He told me he wished he could hold Nora but was satisfied to rub her leg and commented on how soft her skin was.  "She hasn't spent quite as much time in the sun as me," he joked.  He thanked her for coming to see him.  He had me bring Nora in really close so he could tell her, "Someday, when you are older, you will understand about the cycle of life, and then you will know why I am so glad you came to see me."  I tried to choke back the tears long enough to say "We are so thankful we got here in time," but I'm not sure it made any sense.  It reminded me of how, in Dad's final days, he somehow managed to say the things that would give me the strength to keep on going without him.  Throughout the day, Papa's condition deteriorated rapidly, but he bravely hung on until all of the grandchildren who were traveling to see him arrived.  When Nate and Ashley got there, he couldn't really talk but his whole face lit up at the sight of them.  That evening, we all got a chance to spend time sitting with him and saying goodbye before he passed away peacefully.

I've been sitting on this blog post for several days, trying to figure out how I can pay tribute to my grandfather, especially when I'm so pinched for time with my comprehensive exam rapidly approaching.  And then it occurred to me: the best tribute I can pay to him is to get back to work.  He taught us to believe that if we worked hard enough, we could achieve anything we wanted.  But he also helped us to realize that working hard enough means working really, really hard.  Nobody was a harder worker than Papa, and anyone who worked with him will tell you that his employees worked hard for him just because they liked him.  Mimi told me that before he fell ill, he was making plans to come east to attend my PhD graduation ceremony.  For him there was no question about if I would be able to do it or not.  He was just waiting to hear when.  I can hear what he would say: "Get back to work, Missy."

So in honor of my grandpa and the work ethic he taught me, I've been plugging away at my work.  Somewhere down the line, I'll take a break long enough to write about how the things I will miss the most are his affectionate ribbing and his stories.  In the meantime, I'll savor this stage of loss in which every little thing reminds you of the person who is gone.  And I'll share the pictures and video of Nora from our trip, because he wouldn't have had it any other way.

Okay, I have to say one more thing before I go: my family is the best.  I can't wait until we are all together again for a celebration rather than to mourn, but in the meantime, I'm proud to be a member of a family who comes together to hold each other up during life's most trying moments.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, Billy!  I always knew you would adore our child and love her with your whole heart.  But since I didn't realize how much of a test motherhood can be, I only now know how much your love and support of me also helps to make sure Nora gets the best from both of us.  Thank you for keeping me balanced and focused on what's really important.  Nora and I both appreciate all the work you do to give us the stability and support we need to be such a happy little family.

One of the things I've learned since my dad died is that you can experience extreme sadness and happiness at the same time.  To say I have "mixed emotions" about Father's Day doesn't really do the feelings justice, because that phrase has a pretty negative connotation and the feelings don't really mix together for me.  I miss my Dad a little more than usual today, and I feel a little more appreciative that Nora has such a loving, supportive, and stable Dad.  My happiness about Billy being a dad doesn't mitigate my sadness about my dad being gone, and my dad's absence doesn't interfere with my happiness about taking a day to celebrate Billy's role as Nora's father.  I feel both of those emotions simultaneously.  Together, they combine to make me feel a great deal of gratitude that I had such a devoted Dad and that my daughter has the good fortune of having the same.

For Nora's gift to Billy, I purchased some wood letters and planned to pose her holding them in some picturesque locations to spell out D-A-D in a triptych frame I purchased.  My plan is to re-take the photos every year and update the frame for Father's Day.  I am in no rush for Nora to grow up, but as I tried to decide on locations to use, it was fun to think that in the future she'll help me decide where to pose.  This was the first location we used to shoot:

But as you can see, Nora was intent on helping me choose the locations from this year onward.  Obviously she was not impressed with this one, no matter how scenic I found it to be.  After trying to get her to smile in this field, I realized I would have to take her picture in familiar environments to get her to act like herself.  This was a helpful suggestion she made, actually, because it occurred to me that Billy wouldn't care where she was sitting in the photos; he would be looking right at her.  So after a few shoots around the house I ended up settling on these three photos for the frame.

Billy liked the gift and agreed that these pictures do a nice job of capturing different aspects of her little personality.  I hope that seeing them in his office each day will remind him how thankful we both are that he works so hard to make sure we have all the things we need.

I also wanted to share some of my favorite out takes from the photo shoots as a way of saying Happy Father's Day to my father-in-law, Chuck, and all the other dads out there, as well!

Sugar and Spice

Sometimes, when Nora is being especially:
spirited
ornery
independent
curious
funny
or
squirmy,
all I can think is how much my dad would have adored her.

Timshel

I don't believe in a lot.  I do believe art is meaningful, though.  I don't really pretend to know much about most forms of art aside from literature, but today I had one of those sublime artistic moments that is hard to explain.  But I'll try, even though I am pretty sure this chain of ideas will not make sense to anyone else.

I have been missing my dad very badly lately.  My mom is coming to visit us soon, and I'm really excited for her to get to spend time with Nora now that Nora is so much more engaging.  The flip side of this excitement, though, is that it also heightens my awareness of the sadness I feel about the fact that my dad never got to know my daughter and never will.  And he never got to know me as a mother, and I'll never get to share the experience of parenthood with him.

A few days ago I posted this photo of Nora on facebook, and Nate messaged me to say she is smiling Dad's smile.  I didn't realize it until he said it, but he is right.  There's something about the openness of her mouth, the angle of her head, and the proportions of her chin and cheeks that reminds me of my dad's real smile.  That made me go through more recent photos of Dad to compare, and it made me pay special attention to the events in which he is giving his real smile rather than his forced photo smile.








Real smiles: Playing washers in our yard in 2008.

Riding the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls in 2009.

At Vickie's graduation in 2010.

I was so thankful to Nate for bringing this to my attention.  I was thinking about this on my way to school today, though I'm not sure why.  I was also listening to a Mumford and Sons CD that was popular with the rest of the world 2 years ago, but which I didn't bother to download until today.  And then these lyrics came on:

And death is at your doorstep
And it will steal your innocence
But it will not steal your substance

And I thought, true.  Dad's death stole whatever innocence I might have had left.  It did not steal his substance.  I hope it did not steal mine, either.  And then the song continued:

But you are not alone in this
And you are not alone in this
As brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand
Hold your hand


And now I'm thinking, okay, this is getting really weird.  Dad tried to teach us that we don't have to go through life on our own.  And the very best thing that has come from his death is the effort Nate, Vickie, and I have made to be supportive of one another.  And just when this song came on I had been thinking about how my brother had been, figuratively, holding my hand "in this."  And then the song continued:

And you are the mother
The mother of your baby child
The one to whom you gave life

What?  Now, tears.  I could not actually believe these words were coming over the speakers.  I hit the back button to listen again, so it was a little while before I heard that the verse continues with:

And you have your choices
And these are what make man great
His ladder to the stars

And when I heard that, I began trying to figure out where this comes from.  I knew I had never heard this song before, but I knew I have heard something like this quote.  But I couldn't figure it out.  And I listened to the song over and over until I got to school, and I could not figure out what the mother and baby child portion could possibly have to do with the rest of the song, but it touched my heart.

But when I got to my office, I looked this up, and I see that the song is called "Timshel."  Oh, right, I think.  East of Eden.  I've never read it, but I know this concept of Timshel, and I realize that I recognize the quote from this novel.  (We won't digress to talk about how come I know quotes from novels I've never read.)  Further, East of Eden is one of my brother's favorite novels.  One he has been trying to convince my sister to read for years.

I still have no idea what the stanza about the mother is doing in the middle of this song.  Maybe Nate could explain it to me.  But thank you, Nate and Vickie, for holding my hands and always reminding me I am not alone in this.  And thank you for this song, Mumford and other musicians I think are too old to really be your sons.  Somehow you made me feel like my baby will make some of my sadness okay, by way of a song I was not trendy enough to hear until now, which seems to be derived from a book I have not had a chance to read, immediately after my brother who loves that book pointed out that my baby is capable of smiling my dad's smile.

And since that probably didn't make any sense at all, here: listen to the song yourself and make your own memory.  And maybe you can agree with me that Dad probably would have liked Mumford and Sons's kind of Simon-and-Garfunkel-ly vibe.  Or maybe he did like them and he just never told me.  I still get his subscription to Rolling Stone, so he probably knew plenty about Mumford and his theoretical sons.

Thank You

I just wanted to say a quick but sincere thank you to everyone who reached out to me yesterday, and over the past couple of weeks, to let me know that you were thinking about me.  Your emails, phone calls, texts, facebook posts, blog comments, and more have meant so much to me.  I know it is difficult to know what to say on a day like yesterday, but those of you who made the effort to say anything at all touched my heart.  We think Nora is hitting her three month growth spurt because she is nursing almost continuously throughout the day, so I haven't had a chance to thank you all as I would have liked, but your kind words have served as a buoy to help keep me afloat during this difficult time.

I also wanted to encourage you to read Vickie's blog post from yesterday if you haven't had a chance to read it yet.  You can find that here.

On Dad's birthday, Vickie took the card I made for Dad up to his niche and sent me this picture, which helped me feel included even though Nora and I weren't able to visit the niche with Nate and Vickie.

And yesterday, Shaye sent me this photo she took when she and the boys visited Dad's niche on Christmas Eve.  I'd posted a video of Nora to facebook that day, and she played it while they were up there.

In the letter he wrote me to open after he passed away, Dad emphasized the importance of sharing your life with others and allowing them to help you along.  So as my friend Catherine wrote yesterday, it is "amazing to be human," and I know I am fortunate to have the chance to share that humanity with such special people.

One Year

She shaved his face.

Billy, Vickie, and I had been sitting with Dad when his breathing changed and we knew he was about to go.  Billy went to get Aunt Carrie and Judy, and we were all there when he took his last breath.  And then Vickie shaved his face.  Then we noticed that there was barely a trace of yellow left in his skin.  Then we realized that his face had relaxed into a sort of grin.

Every day from January 1 to January 12, 2011 was the worst day of my life.  Every day it got harder to see my dad get worse.  Every day I woke up feeling less prepared to take on the unknown challenges I waited to endure.  I don't know how Vickie brought herself to shave his face, or how she knew what a difference it would make, but that was the sign that healing could begin.

I wish I could make this easier on you guys, he had told me.
That's not your job, Dad, I had responded.  You're the one who is dying, I had thought.  And anyway, the only way this would be any easier is if we weren't going to miss you so much, I'd said aloud.
Thank you for saying that, he'd whispered.

It's not easy.  It's very, very hard.  But I have now seen what it is like to die a difficult death before your time.  And I have now felt what it is like to endure the loss of your father before his time.  There is no question, in my mind, about which one is more difficult.  And I know that any sadness I feel about being unable to tell Dad about what has happened over the past year, or heartbreak I feel that he didn't get to meet Nora, is far outweighed by the sadness and heartbreak Dad felt in the days, weeks, and months leading up to January 12.  He may have put on a brave face and made us laugh, but he knew what he was going to be missing.  And still he managed to be concerned about us.

We're okay, Dad-- Nate, Vickie, Nora, and me.  We have good days and we have bad days.  We have each other.  We have Billy, Ashley, and Tres.  We have plenty of other people around us who love and support us.  And we miss you terribly.  But we have known that you wanted us to heal, and we've been working on it since she shaved your face.  We know because you taught us.  You refused to allow cancer to define your life while you were fighting it, so we know we can refuse to allow it to define our lives now that we've lost you.

I love you, Dad.  I didn't know it then, but you did make it "easier" to live without you by teaching me how and when to stand tall on my own and how and when to lean on others.

Dream Visit

Since we lost Dad, I have been undecided about how I would feel about him appearing in my dreams.  I didn't know because with one exception, it hadn't happened.  I wondered if I felt his absence so deep within myself that I couldn't even conjure him up in my imagination.  The one time I did dream him alive, he walked in my front door talking on his iPhone, holding the hand of a three or four year old Vickie with her white blonde hair.  He was talking on the phone, so I waited for him to hang up.  When he did, he said something to me, but I couldn't remember what it was when I woke up.

Dad loved the winter holiday season more than anyone else I know.  Since the decorations started going up and the songs started playing, I've been reminded of him even more than usual.  I've been trying to avoid getting caught up in the thoughts of "one year ago today" because they just depress me.  The end of November is when all the bad things started to happen.  I think that coming up on the holidays and the one year mark has re-opened the wound, but I'm not sure I'm ready to grapple with it, and I have so many other concerns on my mind that I end up feeling numb.

But maybe Dad's goodwill about this time of year explains why he made a cameo in my dream last night.  After a whole series of strange episodes, I found myself in a conference room where Dad was leading a meeting.  He walked up to me, kissed me on the forehead, and said "I'm so sorry I had to leave you."  It didn't make sense in the context of the dream, because he hadn't left anything.  But when I woke up looking at Nora all wrapped up in her little bed, and the memory of that moment from the dream came back to me, I just started to sob.

But it was the good kind of cry.  The dream took me back to the place where the wound was still fresh and real and I hadn't yet had to get used to the idea of living without Dad.  Thank you, brain, for giving me this dream moment right when he was starting to feel so, so far away.  

That was the best dream I've had all year.  I'm so sorry you had to leave, too, Dad.

Ashley sent me this photo today of me, Nate, and Vickie visiting Dad's niche for the first time together during his memorial weekend.  Thank you for taking the picture and for sharing it, Ashley.

Aunt Vickie, RN

This post is quite belated, but I'm hoping it's better late than never.  These days, it takes a while to string a series of ideas together in a coherent way.

Vickie and Nora in the delivery room.

Before Nora was born, Vickie liked to joke about how many "jobs" I originally gave her when she said she would attend my delivery.  It did not strike me as odd to ask her to keep people updated via text, take video, snap pictures, keep track of visitors, and act as a liaison between the hospital staff and me.  Vickie is the ultimate multi-tasker.  The more responsibilities she has, the more she gets done.

As we approached 40 weeks, though, I told Vickie she didn't really have to do any of these things.  Sure, her medical expertise would come in handy.  But the real reason I wanted her to be there with me was because I was uncertain and unsure about labor, and Vickie is someone you want to have around if you are uncertain or unsure.  Vickie exudes calm.  Her presence alone is reassuring. I knew that Billy would be able to say all the right things and remind me of all the coping mechanisms we learned in childbirth class.  But I worried he and I might get overwhelmed with the stress and emotion of the moment, and I knew having Vickie there when labor got intense would help keep us on an even keel.

Ten months ago, I found myself overwhelmed by the stress and emotion of a very different situation.  Vickie, Billy, and I stayed at Dad's house during his final days.  Vickie took the lead in providing his hospice care, and all the friends and family who came to be with him helped us look after his needs.  Billy was there to provide the strong emotional support I can always count on him to give.  But helping Vickie care for Dad's medical needs took its toll on me.  She did most of it by herself, but there were tasks she couldn't manage on her own.  When I think back on the things she and I went through in those final days, the only way to explain how I endured them is to say that I couldn't have done it without her.  I have never met anyone more capable of putting on a brave, confident face and demonstrating a calm, reassuring demeanor no matter how bad things get.  She is calm, capable, and comforting.  There must have been times when she was breaking inside, too, but she never let that prevent her from caring for everyone else.  I will always remember the time I cracked Dad's door open to check on him and saw that she had fallen asleep on his bed while holding his hand through the guard rail of the hospital bed we'd moved him into.  It touched my heart, and it was the only sign she ever gave that she was exhausted, too.  But even in that moment, she still prioritized comforting him.

So having Vickie in the delivery room with me was a no-brainer.  Since she, Billy, and I had begun our 2011 keeping each other sane as we said goodbye to someone we love dearly, it felt natural for the three of us to be together again as we prepared to say hello to someone else we love dearly.  It felt like we had come full circle.  When Vickie moved in with us last year, it was harder on all of us than we anticipated.  It was taking me and Billy much longer to conceive than expected.  It was taking Vickie much longer to find a suitable job than expected.  A year later, it felt like a special gift that the three of us were able to share the experience of such a wonderful time after spending those difficult months together.

I don't know how long we will be fortunate enough to keep Vickie in Baltimore, so I don't know how long the adolescent patients at Hopkins will be fortunate enough to have her as their nurse.  But there are a few things I know for sure.  Vickie is exactly the type of person you would want to care for your child if your child was not well.  She is also exactly the type of aunt you would want your daughter to grow up knowing, learning from, and admiring.  So for as long as she is here, Nora and I will cherish her companionship, and I hope that in the end, Nora, Vickie, and I will all be better for it.

I love you, Boo.  It feels trite to say Thank you for everything, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Goodbye, Gramma

My Gramma Kingston passed away on Tuesday.  Nate, Vickie, and I last saw her in late May, a few months before her 97th Birthday.  She was excited to see the three of us together with Mom and happy to talk to me about my pregnancy.

I am at peace about Gramma's passing because she felt her time had come.  The past few years have been difficult for her, but she passed away peacefully in her sleep with my mom by her side.  Only a few weeks prior, she left me a congratulatory message about Nora's birth, and when I called her back she was overjoyed that my uncle had printed out a pictures so she could see my baby.  Nora is her fourth great grandchild, and though I'm sorry they'll never meet, I look forward to telling Nora someday how thrilled her Great Grandmother was about her arrival.

Even though I know it was her time to go, I will miss my Gramma.  I believe that after we die, we live on through those whose lives we've touched, so I wanted to identify a few things I got from my grandmother and have enjoyed sharing with her.

My name: My parents named me Elizabeth Ann after my two grandmothers, Elizabeth Kingston and Carol Ann Chambers.  My grandfather's name was William, so as soon as I told Gramma Kingston that I was dating Billy, she told me I was going to end up marrying him.  I'm so glad she was right!

My vocation and my bibliophilia: Gramma Kingston was a high school English (and Latin) teacher.  My mom also started out as a classroom teacher, and teaching is an occupation that has always been highly valued in our family.  I also seem to have inherited Gramma's love of books-- she always had them around her and frequently gave them as gifts.  In my mind's eye, I can perfectly imagine her oft-performed gesture of putting on the glasses that hung around her neck in order to read.  She also used to say she was "interested in what makes people tick," which resulted in her special interest in biography and autobiography.  This also meant she loved reading my blog, and she has long been one of its most ardent fans.

My love of tennis: Gramma Kingston played tennis her whole life, and she took me to my first lessons when I stayed with her as a child.  As I became more and more interested in professional tennis, I enjoyed talking to her about the latest news on the ATP tour.  She was a fellow Andy Roddick fan, especially when he was coached by Jimmy Connors, and she remembers watching the Bryan Brothers playing at her Montecito Country Club when they were kids.  It delighted her that I developed a genuine love of the game in recent years, and every time we talked she wanted to know what I thought about the most recent tournaments.

My sense that I am special because I am a girl: Until I was born, my grandmother had six grandsons but no granddaughters.  From the time I was very young, she made me feel extra special for being the only girl.  All told, Vickie and I are the only two granddaughters out of her eleven grandchildren.  And though she was born several years before women earned the right to vote, Gramma was ahead of her time in regards to women's roles.  She worked in Manhattan before she was married, enjoyed having a profession that allowed her to work outside the home, and started a Young Mothers program that served young women who had babies in high school.

I have enjoyed spending the past few days reminiscing about my best Gramma Kingston memories, and I'll leave you with some photos of one of my very favorite ones.  I was so pleased that Gramma was able to make the cross-country trip to attend my wedding in 2007.  Before she left the reception, Mom, Vickie, and I joined her in stepping along to her signature dance, "Tea for Two."

Rest easy, Gramma.  We'll miss you.

Little Brown Head

Most people comment that when they look at Nora's full head of hair, they see her dad.  But when I look at her full head of hair, I see my dad.

Dad left each of us a letter to read once he passed away.  In the first sentence of the letter he left me, Dad writes that he "loved me since the first time he saw (my) little brown head."  I knew Billy had also been born with a full head of brown hair, so even though I tried not to get my hopes up, I was going to be heartbroken if Nora was born bald.  I knew that if she came out with a little brown head, it would remind me that my dad is with me always, even though he will never get to meet her.

But Nora did not disappoint.  The first thing said by the first person who saw her was a comment on her little brown head.  Dr. Penn told me she had "a lot of long dark brown hair."  This is probably a big part of the reason why I found pushing to be the best part of childbirth, even though it was the worst part in terms of pain.  As soon as I knew she had hair, I was reminded that she belonged to me and Billy and that we made her.  But I was also reminded that the love we have for her would be the newest iteration of a love that our parents have had for us since we were born with our own little brown heads.

When Dad's cancer returned in 2007, I was working on my Master's degree applications, and I wrote to him that the diagnosis made me feel badly that I did not plan to have kids until after I finished that degree.  He responded:
I'd hate for you to give up on dreams and hopes just to try to hit some expectation on my end.  I feel fortunate to have lovely children and energy to spend time knowing them as adults.  Little kids are forever, you need to be ready and happy with your decision for your reasons, not mine.  I haven't asked, pushed, or pressed for just that reason...regardless of health.  You'll be a marvelous parent when the time is right, and Billy will be a great dad.  When the time is right.

The time is right now, Dad.  I just wish you were here to love her little brown head, too.  But don't worry.  It only took me two days after I had her home to tell her "Hands over head!" while trying to get her dressed, so I know that in some ways, being a parent will bring me closer to you than ever.

Ramona and Her Father

Today marks 39 weeks, so we're only one week away from the baby's due date!  Our weekly OB visits continue to go well, and I continue to feel fairly well considering how far along I am.  The little one still squirms around as much as she can, and her movements have been so consistent for the past week or so that I think she has settled into a single position for the duration.  I continue to frequently experience strong Braxton-Hicks contractions that I hope are getting my uterus primed for real labor!

One of the ways I have been keeping myself occupied is by re-reading the Ramona Quimby books I recently checked out from the library.  I loved these books as a child.  I must have read them all prior to fourth grade because I can remember that when Mom and Dad told us we were moving to Portland, I decided that living where Ramona lived would not be too bad.   As soon as I found out we were having a girl, I wanted to re-read these books because I had so much in common with Ramona that I figure my daughter will, too.  Ramona is just as endearingly awkward and relatable as I remembered.

The book I remember best is Ramona and Her Father.  In this one, Ramona's father loses his job, and Ramona has to learn how to deal with how his mood changes as a result of being out of work.  I think I remember this best because my dad left his job when I was in 8th grade and ended up being unemployed for much longer than he anticipated.  I can remember reflecting back on Ramona's experience when I found myself in a similar one.  I also remember that one of the things Ramona's dad did with her while he was jobless was to roll out a giant piece of paper and draw a picture on it with her.

What I did not remember is what Ramona and her dad drew.  They drew the state of Oregon, and while Ramona began with the Interstate Bridge, her dad started by drawing Mt. Hood.  When she looks at her dad's drawing, she finds that "sure enough he had drawn Mt. Hood peaked with a hump on the south side exactly the way it looked in real life on the days when the clouds lifted" (113).  My dad loved Mt. Hood.  He loved the days in the winter when the mountain was visible from West Linn.  This is exactly where my dad would have begun if he had started drawing a picture of Oregon.  So while today marks exactly 9 months since my dad passed away, and these milestones feel significant, it is during the moments like reading this paragraph that I miss my dad the most.  I am so thankful to be reminded of him, and so comforted by having so many positive memories of him, and yet I am simultaneously choked with grief at the reminder that he is gone.

The other thing that I find exceptionally difficult is coming across my dad's handwriting unexpectedly.  Dad had the most distinctive handwriting of anyone I know.  This happened to me on Monday when, exactly one year to the day from the day he left for Chile, I stumbled upon the postcard he sent to our house from the trip.

Finding the card made me acknowledge what a big difference a single year can make.  It also helped remind me that I should try harder to make the most of these last few days before the baby arrives, even though I wish she would just get here already, because as soon as she does the years are going to speed by even faster than ever.

(And I know this post will provoke the question, but the baby's name is not going to be Ramona.  I do love this name and I did propose it early in the baby naming conversations, but Billy thought we should go with a name we both liked. : ) )

Preparation

I haven't updated in a while because I feel like I haven't been doing much of anything that might interest anyone.  Mostly I have been hanging out with Billy and trying to enjoy the peace, quiet, and slower pace of these last few weeks before our time alone together with Oscar becomes "the old days."  In case you're curious what we've been up to, though, here goes.

The baby and I are doing well.  We had another OB visit this week, which confirmed that she continues to grow healthily.  The nurse thinks the baby is head down already, which corroborates my sense about her position based on the movements I feel constantly.  I really enjoy feeling her move, and it is fun to feel pressure on the inside and be able to tell it is probably her foot by feeling my belly with my hand.  She weighs about 5 pounds now and it certainly feels like I'm carrying a 5 pound child around inside my body.  I'm getting fairly uncomfortable, and the frequency of her movements makes it even harder to get comfortable.  I try to remind myself that she's probably pretty uncomfortable in there too, so we're in this together, except that at least I know what's going on.

We enjoyed a nice labor day weekend.  With it came the first Navy football game of the year versus Delaware, which the Mids won 40-17.  The day was beautiful but hot.  I was glad when the game began and took my mind off of my discomfort, and I was glad again when some cloud cover appeared during the second half to cool me down.  There are two more games I should be able to attend, and I think Vickie might even be able to join us for one of them, so I'm hoping the weather will be a bit cooler next time.  We have our south end zone seats again this year, where plenty of touchdowns were scored, so it was another exciting game.  The team has had a dominant quarterback for the past two seasons, but he graduated, so it was fun to see that his replacement is likely to do well.  Here he is rushing for a touchdown.

After a few weeks of not working, I guess I am settling into my "maternity leave."  I am glad most of my maternity leave will be spent with a baby because I am bored.  I don't miss working, but I miss being on campus and being in the mix of everything.  It was hard to see all my friends go back to school and realize this is the first time since I was 4 that I did not participate in the ritual.  Thankfully, I have been able to stay a little bit involved.  The one credit theory colloquium class I attend every semester is open to everyone, registered or not, and there are three sessions scheduled before the baby's due date, so I have long planned on continuing to attend those.  There are normally about 10 or 15 people in attendance, so when around 40 people showed up for the first session, I was quite shocked.  Then I began getting nervous because I am due to present a paper on Katherine Anne Porter at the next session on September 23.  Everyone will read the paper and a few complementary articles beforehand, and then I'll spend about an hour answering questions about the paper and the project.  It's a great opportunity to get feedback on your work, and I have been looking forward to it since I made the arrangements with my professor in the spring.  But even if only half as many people show up for my session, that means a lot of really smart people who spend most of their time reading really smart things will have read my paper, but I am trying to avoid developing too much anxiety about it.

I miss my dad.  I missed him when I got the email about this year's "Staff Development Day," which reminded me that my required attendance at this event last year ruined the trip home to Oregon I'd planned. As it turns out, that trip would have been the last time I got to spend time with him while he was "healthy."  I missed him when there were no text messages on my phone after the Navy football game.  I missed him when I thought about his friends gathering with our family in Lompoc with for the LHS alumni golf tournament.  I miss him when notable events like that one remind me just how many people are missing him and how much less laughter there must be in the world now that he is gone.  I missed him when the Oregon Ducks started the season in a highly anticipated, nationally televised game and I realized he had been alive for their last one.  I missed him when I realized that the first few days of a Grand Slam are still difficult for me to watch because they remind me of how excited I was about the Australian Open but how quickly the plans for that trip went from all of us going, to me and Billy going, to none of us going, to watching it in Dad's house on his TV while we packed up his stuff.  I miss hearing what he thinks about Federer's performance so far in the tournament, and if Fed ends up winning it, as I think he has a decent chance of doing, I will miss hearing Dad say you should never count out a champion with a killer instinct.  When people share their excitement about the baby with me, I know my dad would have shared it, but I miss experiencing in real life the ways I know in my head and heart that he would have acted.  I miss hearing how glad he would have been to have Nate back in Bend and how much he would have enjoyed meeting Ashley. I miss how proud he would have been of the work Vickie is doing and how much he would have been looking forward to her upcoming trip to Portland.  I miss him in moments when I expect to miss him and in moments when it catches me completely off guard.

Otherwise, I've been keeping busy by watching the US Open, trying to get some reading done, going to the gym, and continuing to get the baby's room ready.

It was fun to see Andy Roddick turn in several strong performances this tournament, especially since he has been plagued by injuries this summer.  He even beat #5 ranked David Ferrer, to whom we watched him lose while we were in Austin.  I thought he had a chance to make it competitive against Nadal yesterday, but he looked absolutely spent from the time the first ball dropped... and Nadal looked like Nadal.  After watching the way the matches have gone as a result of weather delays, I have a new appreciation for what a best of 5 set match does to the body.

As for reading, I've finally finished Katherine Anne Porter's 500 page novel, Ship of Fools, which means I've read all the fiction she published.  It also means I can join the ranks of everyone who thinks she was at her best when writing short fiction.  I've now moved onto Bonnie Kime Scott's The Gender of Modernism anthology.  The experience of reading this is equal parts "wow, this is fascinating!" and "dang it, I thought I was going to make that point in my dissertation, and someone else said it 20 years ago."

I still try to get to the gym about four days a week, and I've had to cut out a few of my lifting exercises as my body changes.  I spend about the same amount of time there, though, because I have to give myself more time between sets to prevent my heart rate from getting too high.  At some point I may need to stop the weights altogether and stick with walking, but I'm not there yet, and I'm getting so strong!  It used to be a little hard to lift a gallon of milk, but now I feel like I could throw one across the room, overhand.  My discomfort may be increasing, but overall I feel very fortunate that once I got help with the nausea, I've had a pretty healthy pregnancy. I think that is at least partly a result of being in good shape when I conceived and trying to stay active throughout.

And the baby's room is almost done.  Now that we have all of her things, we have a better idea of how much storage we're going to need, so we decided to use the money we've been gifted to get a new dresser and bookshelf for the room.  We are picking up the glider chair from Jay and Allen next weekend, and Mom is working on sewing us a window valance and a crib skirt with the fabric we picked out.  Once we get those pieces in place, the room will finally be ready, so we are looking forward to shooting a quick video of how it looks for those of you who won't be able to see it in person.  For now, though, here are a couple photos of the newest additions, carefully assembled by yours truly.  (I may be the only person in the world who enjoys assembling furniture.)

Oh, and we've survived all the bad weather relatively unscathed.  Since Sunday, Billy's weather station has registered 8.93 inches of rain, which is about twice what we normally get for the whole month of September.  Since all of this arrived after the ground was well saturated from Hurricane Irene, the low lying areas near us are having a really tough time with flooding.  Billy found the picture below, which shows that the restaurant where we held our wedding reception is under water.  We feel fortunate that the worst effect we've suffered is a few hours of lost power.

That's it from here, I think.  If you've made it this far without getting bored to death by my ramblings, you deserve a reward, so please check out how adorable and funny Krista's girls are.  If our little girl is born on time, her arrival is under 40 days away.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

(Preparation is a short story from a Robert Olen Butler collection I love, titled A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain.  If you like short fiction, I recommend all of his collection, and his novels are pretty good, too.  Some of the short story collections have really fascinating themes, like the one he wrote based on the inscriptions on vintage postcards he collects (Had a Good Time) and the one based the stories on real tabloid headlines (Tabloid Dreams).