This Reminds Me

Archive for the ‘Way Back Machine’ Category

I’ve been fortunate to see a lot of beauty in my lifetime.

The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia

My newborns

The Houston Azalea Trail

Woody’s Beach in Dominica

Ghandi’s Ashram in Maharastra, India

Fall in Indiana

And Julia’s most excellent long basket today. 

School has started – again.  It’s back to my daily disciplines of navigating more traffic, printing weekend schedules and making dinner nightly.

The obligatory first day of school photo – really, it’s required, it’s in the “Mothers’ Manual.”  (l-r) Lois – High School Junior.  Julia – 4th grade.  Rachel – College Sophomore.  Hannah – High School Freshman.

My obligatory first-day-of-school photos started August 19, 1996 with this kindergartner.

Rachel made a new friend – they talked all morning.  Her name?  “I have no idea.”

Lois is sitting at the kitchen table right now, marveling in the wonders of AP Calculus.  “They started us with ‘limits’ – the first day!”  I would offer to help her, of course, but then she’d never learn.

Hannah’s first high school history class was shared with some repeating sophomores and juniors.  “Mom – how do you fail history?”

Julia was the first in her fourth grade class to complete a “really hard” word search, earning her praise from the teacher.  The child loves word games – she is her mother’s daughter.

Even though the school year is often a grind – I simply cannot complain.  I am too thankful for the excellent schools were enjoy here.  Of all the blessings we received in moving from Houston to San Antonio, the schools are definitely first in my heart.  I look back at HISD and shudder.

In addition to all the School Zone signs – there’s another that caught my eye today.  It’s 101 degrees this evening, and a few languid back strokes sound mighty inviting.

Sigh

Guess I’ll go get out my clear return address labels and do paperwork instead.

We’ve just celebrated our fourth Sisters Day – the fourth anniversary of Julia coming home in May, 2006.  We know most adoptive families celebrate “Gotcha Day,” but we like “Sisters Day” better.  “Sisters Day” focuses on the four, not just the one.

Who was this timid child with the deer-in-the-headlights look in 2006?!

Because we are shameless heathens, we skipped church and started the morning with Dad’s waffles, and a sterling silver surprise for each sister.

A “Sisters” necklace for each, set at her place.  Rachel, Lois and Hannah were talking last night about how their places at the table haven’t changed since we’ve been in San Antonio.  I think there’s a certain comfort in that.  When someone plops down in someone else’s seat – chaos!

Weeks ago, the girls voted to eat lunch at Chili’s and see “Oceans” to celebrate Sisters Day – a neat choice, since Julia told us upon first meeting her that she loved dolphins.

Rachel – horrified at the baby turtles that are also known as “lunch” in “Oceans”

I was racking my brain for something else “aquatic” we could do (and afford!) when a great deal just fell into my lap at the last minute – heavily discounted tickets to Sea World good for one day only – the Sunday we were celebrating Sisters Day!  Talk about timing!

A quick family picture at Sea World while we were still fresh.  Humidity was high – our un-sweatiness didn’t last long.

Flipper, courtesy of Rachel’s iPhone

Shamu, also courtesy of Rachel’s iPhone.  Why, oh why are her i-pictures so much better than mine?

Hannah, Julia and I rode “The Journey to Atlantis. “  It was fuuuuuun all the way doooooooown.

All of us wanted to see Shamu in action.  Hannah and Julia coerced Keith (with my waterproof Olympus) into sitting in the Splash Zone.  Lois, Rachel and I had sense enough to sit higher up, away from what toddler Lois used to called “whale spit.”

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sisters Day is supposed to be about the girls – what they want to do, how they want to celebrate our family.  It pleases me when there’s a bit’o'serious mixed in with the plenty’o'silly.

Rachel’s napkin doodle with Julia’s crayons – good thing I noticed it before wiping my Shiner Bock Burger lips

We all enjoyed Sisters Day.  I hope the girls continue to mark this special occasion after Keith and I are gone.  I want them to take care of each other when we can’t.

After all – sisters are pretty good to have.

When my mom died in August, 1998, about 200 friends and relatives sent me cards and notes.   At the time, I found them difficult and uncomfortable to read – the flat, static text failing to conjure the woman whose dying by inches cut me by layers.

On the middle left – my mom Wyoming, the high school yearbook editor and member of the Butler University yearbook staff.  Her college roommate sent one of the first notes I received.

But I kept those cards and notes.   I’ve reread them often, each time viewing another slivered reflection of who my mom really was.

“When my (own) mother died, Wy came over and cleaned my house.”    “Wy loaned us $100 when we really needed it.”   “When we bought her (the baby) home, Wy was the first one at our door with a good meal.” “Your mom could take anything and make it funny.” “There was never a better friend or neighbor.”  “Her ‘misplaced Baptist’ opinions in Sunday School always made me laugh.” “If  anybody had read the book – it was Wy.”

In some form or fashion, all of them said – “She’ll be missed.”

Yes.  And I miss her still.  Especially on Mother’s Day.

My dad’s mother and my mother – Bessie and Wy Hoffman. My cousin Clyde – with whom I recently reconnected on Facebook – shared this photo with me. When Rachel saw it, she exclaimed, “Grandma was a fox!”

I’d love to honor my mother on Mother’s Day but…  I can’t send her a card, or run by with a corsage.  She doesn’t have a headstone at which to lay flowers.  No university boasts a  “Wy Hoffman Chair for the Domestic Arts” wheedling donations.   The families of my sister and I don’t gather at her former home,  joining hands and harmonizing “Kumbaya.”

Mother’s Day 1983 – Judy, David, Sarah and me, with Mom in the background.  Yea baby, my ‘fro was hot.

So how to honor my mother on Mother’s Day?

I think I pay it forward.

If she could strap on David’s artificial limbs morning after morning – I suppose I can remember to reorder Julia’s asthma inhaler.

If she could mop the church floor – I figure I can attend a committee meeting or two.

If she could bring sick kids to our house from (her employer) daycare when their working moms were delayed – I guess I can make our home available to those who might need to escape an advancing hurricane.

That’s the best I can do.

Which is what she did all the time.

So tomorrow’s hon-or is on-her.

Paid forward.