In Memory

I learned this week that a high school classmate passed away. The funeral was this morning in Colorado. I sit here now, hours after he was laid to rest, collecting the thoughts and feelings that have been swirling in my mind and heart all week.

It's always a shock when someone so young is lost; we can't fathom how something so terrible could happen. Jon was a person full of life, living his dream, and on the cusp of starting a new chapter with a new love and family.

We were friends back in the day. The past 20 years I'd not seen him much, but had reconnected the past several years on Facebook, like so many classmates have. Sharing of photos and a few chats here and there have been my main connection to him in our adult lives. His posts reflected positivity; his photos full of his adventures in the mountains he loved. He was a person I truly enjoyed keeping in touch with, and admired for his obvious love of people and community as well as his dedication to fulfilling a dream and living life to the fullest.  Jon touched many lives, which has become apparent by the outpouring of grief and compassion by our high school community in the wake of his death. He had a warm smile (given readily), a love of the outdoors, good looks, intelligence, an appreciation of music and the arts,  a goofy sense of humor, and a gift for making people feel comfortable. His light will be greatly missed in this world.

This week I've turned to my memories to get me through. As I reminisced, I realized that I have some very singular memories of Jon that are frequently brought to mind as I go about my days. These memories are his legacy in my life. Here are two of my very favorites...

This is an unlikely pleasant memory, but one I cherish. Jon and I were part of a contingent of high school juniors and seniors who went on a Close-Up trip to Washington, D.C. for a week. The trip there was my first plane ride. Needless to say, my stomach did not agree with the flight. Jon was sitting next to me, and as I repeatedly hit the barf bag, he was appropriately concerned while simultaneously cracking jokes. It's such an encapsulation of who he was as a person, and it makes me smile every time. The whole trip itself is also a source of good memories.

My absolute favorite memory of Jon happened the summer before our sophomore year of high school, just before school started. I was at a sleepover with a bunch of girls, and Jon and our friend Jason came by. I was feeling down about a recent breakup and they stuck me in the back of a minivan (I think Jason was driving, but not sure), and we drove around for a bit. I was sitting in the backseat in my ESLEEP pajamas (remember those baseball jersey/boxer sets?), listening to those two loveable idiots screeching out the words to The Police's "Roxanne" and completely cracking up. It is a memory I recall every time I hear that song, and plenty of other times in between. I had so much fun with those two during our high school years.

I saw Jon a few times during college, but hadn't seen him much since then. As I think about his passing I lament that I didn't have the opportunity to know him better as an adult. I feel profound sadness for this loss but I know so many others close to him are grieving so deeply.  The only thing we have left are memories, but damn if they aren't some good ones. He had that effect on people. I wish it was something he had seen in himself, that would have turned him from the terrible, heartbreaking decision he made.

Jon's inscription in my junior yearbook reminds me that he always had this dream of living out West, and he worked hard to make it come true.

I only wish we'd had more time, and that I had been able to see him there, if only for a visit.

I hope you have found peace, friend. We are still working on it.

Past and Present Collide (en Espanol)

In May of 1996 while attending Simpson College, I went on a Mayterm trip to Spain. It was the first (and only time since) that I have been overseas, and it was a great time. Ten college-age girls and one short male Puerto Rican professor of Spanish...we most certainly gave Rueben a run for his money. For three weeks we toured around Spain - Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Costa del Sol...and a day trip to Morocco. An unbelievable experience for which I am incredibly grateful.

One of the days spent in Madrid, we happened upon a little drugstore type establishment with a variety of miscellaneous goods (for those of you who grew up in Storm Lake, IA - think of a slightly larger Ressler's Drug. Remember Ressler's?) At this establishment, I happened to buy a book of fairytales, in Spanish of course. It is a book that has been through many moves and today, resides on a bookshelf in our house, though until recently I hadn't opened it for years.

Lately Lucy has been expressing wonderment at words in different languages. A couple of weeks ago I started throwing some words around in Spanish, and she thought I was about the coolest person on Earth. I remembered this book, and offered to read her a bedroom story all in Spanish. Although my Spanish is rusty, I knew I could at least get the gist of the story since I knew the plot, no matter the language. So we grabbed it off the shelf and snuggled up in Lucy's bed for storytime.

I read in Spanish, and stopped every so often to explain in English. After giving me her undivided, completely enraptured attention through Caperucita Roja (Little Red Riding Hood) and Los Tres Cerditos (Three Little Pigs), midway through Cenicienta (Cinderella) she finally stopped me and in a very quiet voice said, "Mama...I don't understand what you're saying." "Do you want me to stop?" I asked. "NO," she assured, and listened to the rest of the story with wide, amazed eyes.

I put the book away after she fell asleep, but the next morning she pulled it out again. She carried it into my bedroom and climbed up on the bed to read. While I was getting ready in the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of her in the mirror, laying tummy-down on the bed with the book open before her, tracing words left to right with her finger, and saying, "uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco..." Because those are the only Spanish words she knows...for now, at least!

I'm pretty sure the 19-year-old me did not fathom when I bought that book, that it would be in the hands of a child of mine one day. That friends, is a near perfect collision of past and present.

Then and Now

September 6, 2010

July 26, 2013

Flashback - Lucy, Elmo, and Buddy

December 2009,  about 6 1/2 months old. How time flies...

Perhaps a Little Bit of History Repeating?

Husband ca. early 1970s

Lucy ca. 2011

Odyssey Flashback

A couple weeks ago when my family was here, we were reminiscing about the Odyssey game system we used to have. Does anyone out there know what I'm talking about? Apparently the first Odyssey system was the "first home video game console" and came out in the early 1970s. The system we had was actually the Odyssey II, and ours entered our lives in the early to mid-1980s. I think my brothers and I got it as a Christmas gift, but maybe Mom or Dad can clarify that.
This game had cartridges that you plugged into it, and as you can see it was an old-school joystick setup with ONE button (how unheard of in today's games!) My favorite though, was what I now know was called the "speech synthesis unit." It was an attachment that allowed the system to "talk" and play music. One thing I still find hilarious is that while playing a spelling game, if you spelled the word correctly, the speech unit said, "that is...ker-net." The fact that a spelling game couldn't "say" correct...well, correctly, is truly ironic.

All in all many hours were spent by my brothers and I (and Dad) playing this system. Now, in the time of the Wii and XBox 360 and Playstation3, it's amazing to look back and see how far the games have come. But sometimes, I could really just use a little Freedom Fighters.

Car Saga Continued...

After the abrupt end to my love affair with the K-Car (as it was so aptly put by Canadian rockers Bare Naked Ladies, If I had a million dollars...I would buy you a K-Car, a nice reliant automobile...), I really wanted to love my next car, a Dodge Spirit. Instead I grew to hate it, because something about this car definitely hated me.

I don't recall specifically when it all started, but a short time after that Easter 1999 incident, my dad found the Spirit for me and I once again had my own wheels. I think the first thing that happened was while driving between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, the tread on one of the back tires just completely peeled off, for no apparenty reason than it just felt like it. Within a couple of weeks, I sprung a flat on another tire.

Sometime that summer while driving to work, the fuel pump went out. I also had to replace the gas tank. In late July, I was in Council Bluffs, IA participating as a bridesmaid in the wedding of a friend. We had just finished the rehearsal dinner and re-entered the outside world to a torrential downpour. Streets were quickly becoming flooded, and I drove back to my hotel as carefully as I could, but something went awry. The next morning I had to get up at the buttcrack of dawn (yes that is a technical term) to get it towed and figure out what was wrong with it before all of the hair and makeup hoopla began. Turns out I had blown one of the front rotors. Not a cheap fix.

That fall, I was driving back from the gym to my apartment in Iowa City. I was just about to turn the corner onto my street, when I heard a clunk. I got out and peered underneath, and just started laughing. There, resting on the asphalt, was the main pipe serving my exhaust system. I jimmied it up with a wire coat hanger and proceeded to the nearest Exhaust Pros.

In 2000, I replaced the brakes, pads, and a couple other things on the car, and also blew the serpentine belt while on a trip to Des Moines visiting friends. I had to hitch a ride back to Iowa City with a friend's husband and come back a week later for the car because no part stores were open on Sunday. Since I seemed to have a knack for things going wrong with the car while I was out of town, I was actually surprised nothing happened to it during my summer in Minneapolis that year. Never fear though...that winter a 16-year-old with a new license smacked into me in a parking lot and left a nice divot.

In January 2001, I moved permanently to Minneapolis. Incidentally sometime that year, the remainder of the exhaust system decided to crap out. After my first taste of a big-city repair estimate, I took a risk and drove it back to Storm Lake (thankfully without incident) to get it totally replaced.

In early 2002, I started shopping for a new car, and I mean new car. I was sick of all this repair BS. After negotiating a good deal (still one of my proudest moments), I was the owner of a 2002 Honda Civic, a FANTASTIC car that I still drive today.

The Spirit still had one last kick in the arse left for me, however. There was a period of time that I had both cars, until some exchange could take place to deliver it to my younger brother. I parked the Honda in the indoor garage space at my apartment, and the Spirit stayed parked in the street. During a time I was gone out of town for a few days, the city decided to sweep the street, and I had not seen the signs ahead of time (because I was parking inside). The car got towed, and it was a sweet $135 to retrieve it.

Man, I was glad to see that thing go! I'm not sure what happened to it when Justin took it over, or where it ended up after leaving our family. I just turned around and never looked back.