Festivities and rainy clouds

With Maddie, her mom Mel, and sister Eden

Cloudy rainy day, the kind that’s good for a book and a long nap. It’s not cold—in the 70s—but I have felt chilled all day, and curling up in a comforter was a treat.

Last night the Burtons and I went to Frisco for granddaughter Maddie’s graduation party.  Love having even most of my family together—we were missing the Tomball Alters, but Megan, Brandon, Sawyer and Ford arrived there shortly after we did. Burgers by the pool, good company, and lots of happiness for Maddie who heads to Colorado University (Boulder) in the fall. This summer, she’ll work and do an internship.

I had been straightening and sorting files the other day and found one in which I had saved Maddie’s very early artwork—those scribbled pictures, first attempts at writing, “I love you, Juju,” and especially an essay she did for TAAS on why her grandmother was a role model for her. That folder was her graduation present, and she seemed pleased as she grinned and leafed through it, promised to study the contents more carefully when she had time. I’m afraid it’s the sort of thing you do for first grandchildren, and I don’t have similar folders for the six still to come along through high school.

Always so proud of my grandchildren—they really are wonderful. But boys will be boys—Ford and Jacob were throwing a baseball on the front lawn when Ford missed the ball, it hit a curbside brick mailbox, ricocheted and gave him a black left eye with considerable swelling. This morning it didn’t look as bad as we all anticipated, but it hurt him to open it. He wore sunglasses to brunch and, with his long, lank build and blonde hair, looked very much the incognito child movie star.

We had a late brunch at one of my favorite restaurants, but it was freezing cold. I had brought a jacket, but Meg went out to the car for a blanket to wrap around herself, and we think we saw a party leave without ordering because they were so cold. Wish restaurants would get that message. I know wait staff hurries and scurries and gets hot, but I think they’re about pleasing customers, aren’t they? The long season of cold restaurants is just about to begin.

Megan and family left for the drive back to Austin, Jordan and family went to the golf tournament, and I settled down for that book and nap. For dinner, I’ll sauté a lamb cop and some zucchini. A good day.

Tonight, a flag flies at the foot of my driveway, courtesy the Fort Worth South Side Rotary. Let us all stop our busy lives long enough to honor those who have given their lives for our country.

Family ties

My brother and sister-in-law came today to pick up the things we found that he should have from all the things we sorted out last weekend. It was another moment of family bonding. My brother is six-and-a-half years older than me, and we share the same mother but his father died when he was two. Still we grew up together. My memory of him when I was young was that he was always my protector. Woe to any kid who tried to pick on me. John went away to military school in high school, then to college and a career in the Navy. We really didn’t reconnect until he went to osteopathic medical school in Kirksville MO and declared that I, living at home and recovering from a broken heart, needed to get out of our childhood home. I went to live with him and his then-wife in Kirksville. In retrospect that says to me that he was still looking after me.

Flash forward maybe fifteen years and we were both in Fort Worth TX, both married, and both heavily involved in the osteopathic community. Then he divorced, followed by me, and our lives took different paths, and we had what I would call a testy relationship for a few years—close but with undercurrents. Now, in our “golden” years (he says we’re fragile), we are close. We don’t see each other often but we talk. Today was a special occasion—they came to visit in my house, drink wine, and prowl through our memories.

We had put aside Blue Willow china for him—he ended up taking it for my niece and for himself the heavy Appalachian pottery my kids didn’t want. He took, at my suggestion, a painting that hung over the fireplace in our childhood home, a couple of cookbooks Cindy wanted, and a framed quote from Owen Wister: “The West is dead, my friend. . . .” I think the things he most treasured were battered small photos of our maternal grandparents—he remembers them and I don’t, a small journal our mother kept when he was a toddler and his father died. He kept saying, “I’m very pleased” and “Thank you.” If I’d known how happy these things would make him, I would have given them earlier—then again I didn’t even know that Mom’s journal was in the attic.

Two articles remain in limbo—the tea table given to my folks when they married and a wonderful small wooden footstool. My kids love the sit on the low stool in front of the fire, and the tea table is an occasional table in my living room. Mom used to roll it into the living room, in front of the fire, for casual Sunday suppers.

We had a lovely visit. Jacob is in awe of Uncle John and even let him treat his injured wrist—must have worked because Jacob left the brace behind when he went home.

I am glad to share these things with family who will treasure them, but I am going to live with gaping holes on my walls where art work has disappeared. If I entertain, it will be with my everyday china, because other sets of china are gone. I am ready to move into my new quarters and let the Burton branch of the family move into the main house. We are making progress-got the architect’s elevations two days ago. It’s exciting to be moving ahead, bit by tiny bit.

But still, it’s all an emotional time.