My Heartbeat

What a weekend! 

Exhilaration.  Exhaustion.  Excedrin. 

And now the work week begins...

Thursday Evening

Lane's Fall Festival, my last as the mom of a preschooler ~ Games, treats, costumes, a bit of an attitude...She is four years old, but her new favorite number is FIVE.  That is how old you must be to begin kindergarten, so she says.  Nevertheless, sweet girl, you are still my Baby Lane.  Always.  I love you.

Friday

Road trip to St. Louis, another of many as the mom of a college freshman ~ Wasn't it just yesterday that we attended your Fall Festival at the same preschool, McKenzie?  It was so good to see you, to share your space, to breathe the same air.  I am wearing my new Fontbonne sweatshirt with pride.  I love you, Frotten.  P.S.  Lunch at the Boathouse in Forest Park was a fabulous idea!   Dining at the water's edge, ducks and a frog swimming by, the smell of the firepit in the backdrop, the company...delightful!

Saturday

Day 1 of Ally's tournament, cheering for #20 as a soccer mom ~ Today your plays were stellar...the passes, the assists.  I am proud of you, Ally Cat, and I love you so.  I have no doubt you are bound for super stardom.  No doubt whatsoever.  Thank you for allowing me to spend the day with YOU!

Sunday

Church, 8:30 a.m. service.  Soccer, Day 2 and a second place tournament medal.  Trick-or-treating.  A headache...of migraine proportions.  It was worth it.  The weekend was definitely worth it. Three days, three daughters.  What's not to love?

Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future.... As though experiencing an earthquake, mothers of daughters may find their lives shifted, their deep feelings unearthed, the balance struck in all relationships once again off kilter.

~Elizabeth Debold and Idelisse Malave

Ahh, the headache.  That's how my work week begins.  But there is a twinge of heartache too.  This morning as I searched my closet (on my knees) for my missing blue suede Bandolino heel, I looked up and there it was (not the shoe) ~ at eye level.  I did not open it.  I didn't have to.  The box has been there on my closet shelf now for two years, six months, and four days.  That's how long it has been since my father was laid to rest.  The box will remain there, in my closet, until my daughter ~ his eldest grandchild ~ takes it for her own.  The box is simply labeled,

"Sanders, Carl. Troop F. Size 7 1/8." 

It is his hat, the last one he wore as an employee of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.  Beside it lies his first MSHP hat, the one that came with his uniform when he was hired in 1965.  Those hats represent four decades of passion for law enforcement, and they remind me of how very much I still miss my dad. 

I carried a winter wardrobe to St. Louis this weekend for my daughter.  Along with it, I brought the picture she requested...the photo of her with her grandfather, my dad, the man who left us long before he was finally gone forever.  While the hurt never completely disappears, with time it seems to ebb and flow.  Today, however, the tide is high. 

Dear Dad,

This weekend was spent with my daughters, the grandchildren you do not know.  McKenzie misses you, Ally wonders who you really were, and Lane recognizes you as my father in photographs.  Last night while trick-or-treating, your little brother gave me some old family photos.  (I thought back to so many Halloweens ~ pots of your chili, your excitement at treating the little ones who came, costumed, to our door.)  It was good to see you captured that way...laughing, healthy, happy to be with your family, with us.  That was a long time ago.  I wish I could rewrite our ending.  I wish you could know my girls and share in our joy.  I suppose as long as they are thriving and continuing to shine, then your story really isn't finished.  They are still your girls too, as am I.  I hope the epilogue pleases you.

All my love,

Stephanie

In the light of the sun

Is there anyone? Oh, it has begun

Oh dear, you look so lost

Your eyes are red, the tears are shed

This world you must have crossed, you said

You don't know me

And you don't even care, oh yeah

And you said, you don't know me

And you don't wear my chains, oh yeah

Essential yet appealed

You carry all your thoughts across an open field

Where flowers gaze at you

They're not the only ones who cry when they see you

"Boston" ~Augustana