The STUFF Sisters

Today Was The Day

For well over 30 years, I have driven past Bothwell Lodge and told myself – and my occasional fellow passenger – that I would visit some day.

For well over 30 years, I have driven past Bothwell Lodge and told myself – and my occasional fellow passenger – that I would visit some day. There was never time to stop on my mad dashes to my father’s lake house and its peaceful embrace. My return home on the Sunday nights of my past found me looking at it from the highway knowing it was locked up tight and holding firmly to its visitor hours.

Today was the day, however. We have had an amazingly lovely fall in Missouri, and a destination is always a good thing when you take off on a day trip with the ones you love. Even after sleeping in, the Bothwell Lodge was in our sights by 12:30 pm.

A friend of mine commented on Facebook, when I posted a few pictures, that he always imagined the King and Queen of Missouri lived there during his trips through this region in Mid-Missouri. The lodge does make that impression from the highway, but, when you get around to the other side, it looks like a large but quaint home. We took the tour from a young and informed tour guide who didn’t have to tell us that Mr. Bothwell wasn’t big on interior decoration. The furnishings were spare and ran to the utilitarian in most rooms. There were things to ooh and aah over – like the scale of the rooms, the wood used throughout the house, and the breathtaking views. The details in the home were what constantly caught my eye.

The best thing about today was being with the two people who love a road trip as much as I do: my son and my husband. We all needed a quick trip out of the city, and this fall day was perfection.

p.s. The Bothwell Lodge is a State Historic Site, and the grounds are even sparser than the interiors. Today the trees and their colorful bounty provided all the pomp and circumstance. We, however, provided the circus acts on the lawn.

Steve Jobs’ Death Pisses Me Off

Personally I am tired of cancer taking amazing people from me and from our glorious world. Steve Jobs’ passing makes me sad, but it also pisses me off.

Personally I am tired of cancer taking amazing people from me and from our glorious world.

Steve Jobs’ passing makes me sad, but it also pisses me off. And I think this is a good thing. Because it will, once again, renew my passion for being part of finding a cure for all cancers.

My grandmother died from cancer, my mother has survived cancer more than once, my father is in Houston right now undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, and this week I have deeply needed one of my business mentors that died a couple of years ago from cancer.

Cancer Crew Cut — Me and my Dad. I shaved his head when the chemo started causing it to fall out.

That’s it. Cancer has got to go. That is why today I am going to make a donation to The Susan Henke Miller Breast Cancer Research Fund (the same charity our annual event Wings of Hope supports) in honor of Steve Jobs.

I don’t want to feel powerless today. I want to feel empowered and inspired by Steve’s legacy. Owning his inventions are not enough for me today. I want to kick back at the loss that cancer has brought us all.

Until there is a cure….

Summer Goes

On this, the last day before Autumn officially begins and my favorite season ends, I wanted to share a blog I wrote in August of 2007. I can still see the evening vividly, and the memories are overpowering.

Enjoy. Here it is.

Sloane

Trail of Tears

Almost a month ago we put our dog, Einstein, to sleep. I can’t say it’s been a long month since but it has had its moments.

One month ago, we put our dog, Einstein, to sleep. I can’t say it’s been a long month since, but it has had its moments. Last week, a wonderful note in the mail from a dear friend left me navigating the steps to the second floor with blurry eyes and tears gently rolling. It wasn’t even a long note. It was just a perfectly chosen single sentence from a man who takes care with words.

It actually took us until this past Saturday to pick up his remains, and we still don’t know what to do with them. So they are sitting on the kitchen table. Our son wants them in his bedroom. Sounds like a good place to be – with the twin beds and the Legos and the books. Our dog always was happiest with one of us by his side. Particularly the youngest of us. At first it was funny smells that allured him, then nibbles dropped from a high chair, food left unattended on a toddler table, and, finally, long walks alone with his growing boy. They both liked those walks. We even got a picture of him posted on the Blue Buffalo site once, he was really proud of that. We Our son would saunter at a speed that Einstein dictated, and both experienced a freedom from rules, regulations, timetables and adults.

I have revisited our last day with our dog many, many times. I doubt I’m done picking it apart, but I can find no flaw with it just now. My visual memories of our time with the vet that day are vivid. He was surrounded by us all, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. The vet and her assistant have cared for him since we rescued him 17 years ago, and they too had spent the morning wishing noon would never come.

But high noon always comes.

I have found myself lately playing the “why & what if” game. Why couldn’t his mind have gone first? Or his sight? A funny tummy plagued him for a few years but arthritic hips took him out. Why? What if we had gone ahead with the hip surgeries 6 years ago? What if we had installed wall to wall carpeting in our historic home? Would it have been easier on his hips? What if … and why? It’s a game you play when sadness breaks down your ability to see clearly. Most days, however, I can see that 19 years is a wonderful life for a dog. It was a wonderful life for all of us.

Our last morning with our dog was slow and restful. I don’t believe we were ready to leave the house, but the photos from that day show a family at peace – a family that knows letting go is the right thing to do. The kind thing. The humane thing.

I miss my dog. However, there is a certain grace that enters the final and permanent moments of living, and I have witnessed it three times so far in this life. It was in that stillness that my dog helped me rediscover that the peace I carry will be with me long after the trail of tears ends.

p.s. Our son set up a page on Facebook with many photos of our dog, some from his last day with us. You are welcome to view them here, if you dabble on Facebook. The photos used above were taken on Anna Maria Island, Florida, on July 31, 2011. It was our last family “portrait”.

A Spring-Fall Girl is Born

I have called myself a Summer Girl for many, many, many years. I always loved the heat. But I think age, wisdom and my outrageous power bills have brought me to me knees. I am now re-inventing myself as a Spring-Fall Girl. This is your offical notice. Please update all of your beliefs about me accordingly.

P1030478 — Please note that our door is wide open, our hair is down, I am wearing sleeves, and there is no sweat on our faces.

PS…This does not preclude my being a Beach Girl in any season. Weather and geography are two very different things.

Friday Night Lights

I attended my first friday night football game at my son’s new high school tonight.

I attended my first Friday night football game at my son’s new high school tonight. Football’s never really been “my sport”. It is a wee bit violent for me. When I attended high school way back in the early 80s, I tried to never miss a game. Our school shared a field with another high school, so even home games held the allure of a car ride, before and after I had my license.

I did not sit with my son at the BBQ before the game or at the game. He was off with his friends – new and old – and that made me infinitely happy. He’s building his life and his memories, and I’m merely the taxi driver. Fine by me. Truly.

The light came on again tonight that my son has done nothing but grow away from me since he was born. I should be sadder, or so I’m told. I’ve spent time and energy visiting this issue, and you can see one of those musings here. While sitting in the bleachers with my niece, I was reminded that – even after the lights came on and the world got a little darker tonight – my son knew exactly where to find me. If I’ve been doing my job correctly and have let him grow away from me, he’ll always know exactly where I am.

p.s. If the photo of the field lights I captured isn’t the stuff of a Lori Buntin painting, I don’t know what is.

New Digs

The beginning of the school year does not bring on the deep desire to sniff crayons or markers. It does not make me yearn for sweaters and boots. I don’t even want the cooler weather to drop down too soon. Around our house, it simply means Mama’s got the bug to move furniture.

Last year it was the excitement and sadness of converting the young man’s room from a bunk bed setup into a double-twin-bed lounging paradise. We got him some new furniture on this site. It was a day fraught with tears for what seemed like the true end to the “kid” room and therefore childhood. At least that’s what I manifested it into.

This year – two days before the first day of school – the golden child’s desk moved from the kitchen to the room we labeled years ago “the playroom” due to its housing all the games, the toys and the air hockey table. His desk had been in the kitchen since the second grade when he and I started sharing a computer. The computer and he faced the wall so I could easily see the screen from any vantage point in the kitchen. Not on my watch was he going to accidentally dance with porn! No way!

a boy and his desk — The boy and his new desk.

The domino effect of house re-arranging is that it gave me the opportunity to tweak a few more things that needed change. It just stands to reason that, if he and I are no longer sharing a computer and a desk, we should both get new digs. So this boy’s mama moved a desk into her dressing room, and all has been bliss. I am safely nestled into the second floor of the house with a window for taking in Hyde Park vistas and with seashells on the sill for moral support. Right now I’m loving the sleekness of the desk surface, but I know that will change.

My move from the epicenter – our kitchen – is providing me with much-needed clarity for the writing I’ve been yearning to do. I am able to leave the hubbub after dinner and enter a little silence – which I still love to have pierced by my baby boy as he attacks his mountain of homework.

Sloane

Helicopter Parent

I have been checking in with my father almost every day since he was diagnosed with cancer late this spring. It seems like the least I can do. Sometimes we talk about cancer, sometimes we talk about work, sometimes we talk about movies, but mostly we talk about nothing in particular. And talking about nothing has been taking us at least 10 minutes almost every time we talk.

dad, D and vic — My Dad, my son, and my step mom not too long ago. Well, long enough ago that he still had facial hair. Oh, hell, any hair.

This is an impressive amount of time for me with a phone to my ear because talking on the phone is anathema to me. I’ve never been very good at it, and most of the time I can get a little short and just move quickly towards the hanging up part. I’m getting better, but I’m not cured. Yet.

A week or so ago, a friend of mine, Patti Dickinson, posted on her Facebook page an article in our local paper about the University of Missouri hiring a new person to help parents separate from their children as they enter the new world of living at college, or some such concept. I was disgusted that this was even a job that was needed at any university or college. There was much discussion on her page about how ridiculous this was, and I was in full agreement. Actually, I still am.

However, today something hit me. I have become a helicopter daughter. I am hovering around my father and checking in to make sure he is OK, adjusting and getting used to his new “environment”. I had become one of those dreaded people that can’t let their family out of their sight – or, in my case, hearing range.

At a time in my life when our son is entering his last four years of schooling before college and I am working hard at making sure he’s independent and capable and can troubleshoot some of his shortcomings, I am spending great amounts of time making sure my father is coping and is not overwhelmed by a bully he can’t even lay hands on directly.

Can I be a helicopter daughter while not being a helicopter parent? I think I can. We’ll see.

Bittersweet

Tomorrow morning my daughter will start first grade. Tonight she took her own shower, cleared her own plate, picked out her outfit for her first day of school, and even remembered to brush her teeth. I tucked her into bed with a book and her new kitten. After I kissed her goodnight, she said, “Mom, don’t forget to set my alarm.” I set her alarm and kissed her one last time and quietly left the room.

I then stood outside the door and let the tears fall.

I believe that I never truly understood the meaning of bittersweet until I had a child. Now I hope my life is filled with an endless amount of these moments.

Baby in Chicken Costume — Halloween 2006

The Past as Present

I have been coming to the beach in Florida on average once a year for 9 years. I’m lucky. I have firsthand knowledge of the healing powers of the surf and the sun. I can feel it on my skin and in my soul.

Hunting for shells is a part of life on the island we visit. It juts out from the southern tip of Tampa Bay and collects some real doozies from the Gulf of Mexico. I have the patience for looking for shells, and I find the work cathartic. But I’m not good at it. I have been laughed at for what I bring back and what I find beautiful, but it rolls off of me and I care little. Shelling is a private endeavor, and others need not really know too much.

I have excelled at acting like Madame Cousteau as my son – once little and now not so much – brings me his bounty from the sea. I ooh and ahh and am truly transfixed by his luck in the shallows and on the sand. (Many years ago, I saw a comic in The New Yorker of a young Jacques at the beach. It showed his mother in a beach chair absolutely surrounded by sea life, shells and rocks. The artist had her saying something sweet and alarmingly funny – I have forgotten it, but the image has stuck with me as my son has aged.) This past week, he has brought me miniature wonders and large treasures.

And yesterday – just yesterday! – I realized why I’m not the greatest shell collector. Well, not the greatest collector of perfect shells…why I am drawn to all the shells that are imperfect and broken and damaged. The realization had me looking up from the “shell dump” my son and I were digging in and looking toward the incredible sinking sun as I caught my breath. It had come catapulting through time to strike me straight in the heart.

When I was in the 4th grade, my parents moved us from Des Moines to Kansas City. It was a wee bit hard to join a class mid-year and fit in. Well, I didn’t actually fit in for several more years. I was not chosen for kickball or dodgeball teams. I was not waved over to join a group at a lunch table. I was not picked first for spelling bees or vocabulary teams. It was tough. I was the new kid.

It was well into my 5th grade year when I met the young woman who has remained my best friend to this day. And even then, when she fell in gym and broke her forearm, I was blamed by others because I was near her and fell at the same time. I felt like I was the odd duck and the 5th wheel. I just knew I was imperfect in my classmates’ eyes – broken in some way I could not see in the mirror – and it left me a bit damaged for several years.

This brings us back to the beach and the bounty I carry away and into my home. I have jars on a high shelf in a guest room that house my treasures. I used to be a bit more anal retentive, putting dates and locations on the inside of the lids, but now I mix and match my catches. I will occasionally bring a jar down and place it on my dresser for a few weeks so I can marvel at the different shapes. I can admit to liking the pristine pieces that look like they were purchased at a gift shop, but I mix them liberally with the majority of what I own – odd shells, barnacled shells, broken shells, cracked shells, tips and fragments.

Today I found the shells you see, in the surf up-island from our beach chairs. I dug them out of the sand and clear water, looked at them briefly, and silently told myself to throw them back. They were still been held together by membrane, and one side was barnacled and off-colored, but the other side was nearly perfect and barnacle free. I held it for over a minute while contemplating how these two halves could still be together in the rough and tumble of the sea. One was perfect and one was not. Then, because I knew tossing would damage them, I laid them back gently on the sand in the shallows and walked away.

Ten minutes later, my son joined me where I sat after I had left the flats, and he showed me his many amazing shells, one of which was the pair I had placed back in the sea.

Oui, Madame était très contente.

Sloane

Special note: a “shell dump” is a phrase my sister Casey coined years ago to distinguish regular beach from a section that had a lot of shells collected in it at the last high tide.

Translation: Yes, Madame was very happy.