Palm Sunday

Somewhere I gained a whole week. This past Sunday I’d mourned the fact that we’d missed Palm Sunday. I’d had to work and I’d been all out of sorts about missing it. Turns out that it’s not till this weekend. Woo! Hoo!

Here’s the thing with Palm Sunday. My Dad died on a Monday. We had the funeral and visitations and all that and then a few days to wander around lost and spent and then– with that wacky Gregorian roulette wheel– there was Palm Sunday. Robby and I went to church with my mother and, because Dad had died so suddenly, there was another wave of shock and grief from the church family… and the completely empty feeling of Dad’s anchoring place in the pew… but there was all that Palm Sunday hoopla.

I grew up in evangelical churches. Palm Sunday was more of a story in Sunday School and Junior Church then anything else… Good Friday and Easter Sunday were the biggies. Palm Sunday was always tossed in as an, “Oh, and by the way…”

Maybe you remember the stories from your Sunday School days? Jesus riding in triumpantly over streets paved in palm fronds? Maybe you made paper palms when you were small and waved them in your Jr. Church processional? Maybe you are aware that all the good hymns kick in for Easter. There’s some pretty decent Good Fridayesque ones, too… But name one Palm Sunday specific hymn off the top of your noggin. Not easy to do, is it?

That first Palm Sunday, after Dad died, it might have been coincidence– but I don’t believe in them– our pastor (and one of my Dad’s close friends) kicked it up a notch. There was a little Easter in there. A lot of triumph. Some hope. He threw in one of the songs that had made the B List for Dad’s funeral. (That wasn’t a coincidence– I caught his eye when he smiled at me.)

It’s been years since I’ve been in that church. When we go (and I say that sheepishly because we should be there every week) it’s to Robby’s childhood church. It’s Episcopal… so they do up Palm Sunday in the way that only people mired under Lent can. After 33 days of doom and gloom and introspection these people are straining at the bit to eject a little joy in the proceedings. Palm Sunday and that triumphant entry does the trick. (Of course we get brought back to our senses with a reading of the Passion. Like over exuberant children our wrists are slapped and we sit back down quietly dutiful for another week.) At our church every year everyone is handed a palm frond to wave (albeit kind of pathetic, uncertain waves– again– it’s Lent so God forbid anyone break out into glee or whooping…) and, in our pew, it’s an annual struggle of my husband trying to remember from childhood how to fashion his frond into a cross shape. This usually entails some very unchurchlike words being mumbled under his breath and those of us nearest to him being poked in an eye or two during his construction phase. This years crosses turn into next years Ash Wednesday ashes. Joy (even surpressed Lenten joy) goes back to grief which builds to joy again.

And it all makes me… not happy exactly, but something akin to comforted. There’s something about the inevitable theme with the palms and the foreshadowing to heaven and resurrection and the inevitable connections I now make to my Dad’s death that make Palm Sunday my favorite of the year. Where it falls on the calendar doesn’t really make a difference– it’s still my tap on the shoulder every year of a guaranteed measure of hope.

Party of 4

I came across an old photo the other day. It’s been on my mind this weekend. It’s a snapshot of my mother, father, sister, and I taken on a sand dune. In the photo we’re still an insulated little nuclear family– the two of us, the two of them. We stayed the way we added to the family with husbands and our babies. The first subtraction came with my Dad’s death.

I’m not very old in the picture– just a little girl. In 1974 my whole world was my family. School and friends hadn’t taken encroached yet. My hair was long and I did not yet have to wear glasses. My sister’s hair, in the photo, is long, too– so it was taken while she was still in elementary school. In junior high she cut it and it never reached the small of her back again.

It’s not a great photo– We are in this great expanse of sand– our bodies only take up a wee part of the frame. (Years ago, when I was a camp counselor, I taught photography. I used to tell the children to look through their camera viewfinders and think of the opening to the Brady Bunch show. To think of their photos as Bradys– and to take great care that each Brady got a little attention. When we’d develop their shots the kids would study the results and say things like, “Oh! I left out Bobby and Peter, didn’t I?” It’s a good way to teach little kids photography. You don’t end up with tiny subjects in the middle of a large background.) This old photo breaks my rules about spacing and size. There we are, drowning in the middle of all that space and all our backs are to the camera… so that the end result is more of an impression of us. My sister is holding my hand. My father is bent over with his hands near my face– maybe I had sand or hair in my eyes? My mother is waiting at my father’s side for us to continue walking. We’ve been walking– you can see it in the sand where we’ve left our big, medium, small, and tiny footprints.

Jack is sleeping upstairs and Robby has just come in from walking the puppy… so I would not want to trade in this life to live that one again– but I miss this little family just the same. It’s the world I want Jack to know– small at first and safe, then larger and supportive.

By the time his toes first dig into that same expanse of sand some 30 years will have passed since that first family stood there. I hope that, like the sand, they’re still there, too.

Jack Version 2.5

Well today the JackRabbit turned 2 and one half years old. All day I’ve thought of how unbelievable it is that my baby isn’t technically a baby anymore. It seems like an eye blink that we were all in the hospital room passing him from one set of arms to another and marveling at his perfect little lips and nose and toes and fingers.

And today he’s this bundle of high energy– literally bouncing off the furniture and us and hurtling through his day with gusto and wild courage. This week he’s counting to thirty (well, “Twennie-ten!”) and sashsaying across any flat surface with a cowboy swagger. Tonight we had pizza (his favorite) and he (as usual) ate twice as much as me– but shrank in horror at the site of the mini-cupcakes Robby brought from the market. (When we scraped off the frosting he approached one gingerly and said, “Cake cookie?” and reluctantly raised it to his lips where it quickly disappeared.) I sang an old song “Dirty Ole Town” tonight while we were playing and he sing-songed-la-la-ed the repeated parts back to me– with pretty decent pitch (so take that Randy Jackson!). He jumps off the ottoman like a paratrooper and ran across the Museum parking lot clutching my hand while he hit all the puddles with a SPLASH!… He loves to jump down the back steps while he holds our hands and counts.

We stopped in, this morning, to see my sister at work and when we pulled in the parking lot he recognized the building and said, “Oh! AunT! AunTeeee!” (he knows “Daddy work” and the houses of Momma, Grampa & GrandLady, Keegan and Maddie, and my Granny, too.) Sometimes when I tell him that it’s naptime he’ll respond not with a “NO!” but with a more civilized, “Not yet.”

He’s growing up. He’s learning things and remembering things and figuring things out. He’s “sawry” when he does something wrong and full of applause when he’s being good.

Every morning he feeds himself breakfast rather neatly and relishes his bananas. He won’t touch his old favorite– quiche– but he’s starting to surprise us by trying something new every blue moon or so. He likes Caillou, Thomas & Friends, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and lights up when he sees the pbsKids logo. His current favorite nighttime stories are a little book about lighthouses, Chicago, and a Sandra Boynton book that he recites with us. We can’t skip pages anymore. And when his day is finally finished he reaches out for his little stuffed Cookie Monster and pulls it towards him in a loving headlock while his little hindend wiggles under the blankets.

And he laughs easily and often– playing little jokes now and delighting that he should have such an attentive audience in his parents.

I feel guilty that every day (except for those bad ones when he is cross and sullen and tantrum filled) he gives us so much– that we are so fortunate to have this whirling dervish to love and hold and tend. I’m beginning to understand the cultures that worry about the Evil Eyes and the like– I wish that he should always be so safe and we so blessed.

He repeats so much of what we say– we cringe a little when he scolds the puppy with, “No! Bad puppy!” or the like. But there is a sweet reward when he so easily chimes, “Loff yew” at the end of the day. We loff yew, too, JackRabbit.

A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral…

This weekend I went to a trade show with a pal. There we ran into an old acquaintance (OA) whose husband had passed away earlier this year. Neither of us had attended his funeral or wake or even sent a card– a fact that we were both chagrinned to remember as the OA greeted us enthusiastically. My pal, more composed than I, extended her deep sympathies on the news of the OA’s husband’s passing. (I chimed in with a very lame, “Uh, yes, Me, too.” So very eloquent am I…) The OA accepted her condolences and the three of us (and another nearby woman) bowed our heads in a quiet moment.

Then, suddenly, OA brightened and told us that she’s engaged to another OA. We– my pal and I– are still in reverent sympathy mode so we have to manually adjust our faces to meet her glee. “Oh!” we cry in unison. The OA goes on to tell us that they’ve had to delay the wedding till late summer so that she can get everything tied up… Paperwork, cooling the body– that kind of thing.

Bottom line is — it’s all good, and we’re really, genuinely hoping that she will find happiness and comfort in this new life… but still it’s a lot to take in during a 45 second interchange.

“I’m so sorry to hear of your… congratulations!” Hallmark don’t play that game.

Eau de Worms

It’s starting to smell like worms. Have you noticed that? Does that happen where you live, too?

In my medium sized town it’s the first harbinger of Spring and the green things to come– a few days where the ground smells damp and wormy. There are still piles of dirty, gray snow, to be sure– and the forecast promises snow or the like this weekend… but Spring is on her way.

It makes me want to clean things and be outside again. But it’s all quite false, really. Just a big tease. So, in the meantime, I’ve contented myself with a run through the carwash.

The Accidental Travelers

A few weeks ago we took our first Jack-free trip. My Momma is on this side of the ocean so she took the boys (the Little Black Pup accompanied JackRabbit) and we took our leave for Chicago.

It’s disconcerting to go out without the little man in tow. We’re so used to him along for the ride. Still– it was nice to get out from under the roles of Constant Caretakers and better still to know that with Momma in charge we had no need to worry about the wellbeing of our little son. (Of course– my nieces’ first trips to the ER for stitches were while Momma had them… but their roughhousing always came with a shock and a price. Jack roughhouses all the time. It’s the difference between boys and girls perhaps?)

Anyway– there we were off on our Grand Adventure and a little more than rusty after two and a half years of traveling with the small fry. We could eat in the car! We could sleep in! We could linger at a table! We could use the revolving doors! Suddenly Chicago opened up in front of us with new promise.

Of course, two blocks away from my Momma’s house and I had second thoughts. What if (unlikely though it may be) he noticed we were gone? What if he woke up scared? What if…

What uncreased our foreheads (Robby was a little bereft, too) were our pals Chris and Sue. They were meeting us in Chicago for the weekend. They had legitmate business– he was presenting at a conference… not just wantonly running away from all responsibility like us. We met them for a late night stroll in search of a bar where the boys could drink Guiness and Susan and I could eat something sweet and wonderful. I celebrated my rediscovered self with hard cider. We sat at the table laughing long past what we might have been able to with a sleepy Jack… (Was he sleeping? Did he brush his teeth? Say ‘Night Night’ to the moon? Did he read GoodNight Moon?)

The next day dawned promising– we had the timezone in our favor giving us an “extra” hour of sleeping. [How pathetic is it that we so delighted in being able to sleep-- truly sleep-- in?] We met our pals for a delicious breakfast then went off into the city in search of chocolates, books, and a perfectly grown-up Bistro where we sat at a high table perfectly unsuitable for small children. (Did he have a grilled cheese? Did he wake up happy?)

In the late afternoon we separated– Susan and I off to bargain hunt while the boys went off to pub crawl. We agreed to rendezvous at the base of the Sears Tower in 2 hours. In the meantime Susan and I discovered that we shop amazingly well together– and celebrated that rare ability with new shoes. (Borns that were half off. Yay for us.) The boys rediscovered their perfectly matched drinking abilities. I’m sure they celebrated that in their own besotted way. At the rendezvous hour we got a call to cancel the Sears Tower Thing– apparently there’s no bar there. The boys were beyond disgusted with this information and so we pushed back our reunion to 7:45 when we had dinner reservations at Lawry’s.

By that time Susan and I added a few bags to our arsenal and the boys a few pints, shots, and God knows what else. We met them at 7:44 as they stumbled toward us. Chris was patting himself down and Robby was trying to focus both eyes at the same time– a task that was causing him great consternation. And that’s when Chris realized that he no longer was burdened with the weight of his wallet. We retraced their stumbled steps but found only grimy snow piles. Susan went to hold our reservation and I went with Curly and Moe to the nearest hotel to see if the Conceirge could help us (or at least tell me how to spell concierge). And I got to witness this insightful bit of dialogue:

Hotel Guy: What color cab was it?
Chris and Robby: Huh?
Hotel Guy (now looking at me): What color cab was it that brought you here?
Chris and Robby: Uh…
Hotel Guy: Was it White? Yellow? Orange?
Chris and Robby: Uh….

The concierge sighed ever so slightly and opened the thick Chicago Yellow Pages with a thump. He started his way down the very long list while I retraced steps back to Lawry’s and Susan. When the fellows joined us 10 minutes later Chris was still walletless and Robby was still struggling to walk upright. We were seated and served with all the Lawry trimmings– the Famous Spinning Salad (not so famous for any of the four of us to be familiar with it), prime rib, individual wee Yorkshire puddings, and creamy potatoes. We dug in and enjoyed ourselves immensely. By the end of the meal– when our new pal/waitress presented us with a chocolate paper bag full of mousse and fruit goodness– we were fat and happy and completely warm and satiated.

This is testament to the very good natures of our pals Chris and Susan. Not many could suffer a monkey wrench as a lost wallet full of ID and cash and bank cards with such intact humor. For some the weekend would have been spoiled entirely. But our quickly sobered Chris just shrugged it off to stupid luck and sliced into his plate of perfectly cooked beef.

In the end it was a near-perfect weekend. Robby and I had enjoyed ourselves without the aid of a highly entertaining toddling funny (little) man. And Chris got his wallet (albeit cashless) back about a week later.

A weekend in Chicago (including shopping, eating, gas, and hotel)… $500
A weekend with the best of pals laughing, shopping, and making merry… and getting to come home to a happy little boy? Priceless.