Facebook Archive - March 2018

March 14 - Ian: “I have a hard time keeping track of who you’re dating and who you’re just hanging out with.”
Me: “You’re not the only one, dude.”

March 17 - (at Oceanfront for Shamrock 8K) Ian: “Next time can we bring bikes?” 

March 17 - Ian: “But you haven’t given up on love, have you? Oh I guess that’s impossible since you’ll always love me.”

March 25 - I forced my child to use the “push to talk” feature in his online game so the whole party doesn’t have to listen to him narrate the scenario. You’re welcome, fellow gamers.

March 28 - 

I showed Ian the video that Rich made for him back in 2012. He didn't like it very much. He said it didn't look like Daddy. 

My mom will get teary-eyed and say that I kept Rich alive long enough for Ian to know him. That if he had died in 2012, Ian would have never known him. 

But it does make me a little sad that the person Ian remembers is not the man I fell in love with. I have said that my husband went away in the summer of 2014 after his second failed surgery. And that's right about when Ian started having his own memories of him. 

My son and I love and miss two totally different people. 

I showed Ian one of the videos Rich made just before accepting hospice. It was about his time in the Army. Ian liked that video much better. It looked like his dad (sunken cheeks, bushy grey beard, PICC line in his arm). And he liked the specifics of the story versus the generic "I love you" that Rich sent out to his three-year-old son. 

I guess my elephant analogy (the blind men arguing that it's a rope, a pipe, a fan, or a tree) from his eulogy is accurate after all. Rich is all of those things.

Ian Update

I realized I haven't mentioned Ian specifically lately. Partially because he's doing A-OK.

His basketball team won their championship (their record was 9 & 1 during the season). As he walked out wearing his medal, he said, "I don't see why only the first place team gets medals. There were kids on the other team who worked way harder than I did and they go so much better. They should have gotten one too." That's my boy!

He's not super competitive. He lamented that he liked learning how to play basketball, he just didn't like scrimmaging or playing in actual games because it was stressful. Honestly, I can't say I blame him. Maybe he'd prefer the solitude of cross-country running, except that he's built like a juggernaut. So maybe shotput?

He has lots of friends at school and through my various social escapades. He's content to hang with adults or kids of any age. When I went to the Smiths, I don't think I actually saw him the entire weekend except when we slept because he and Andrew were joined at the hip.

Once we celebrated Day of the Daddy (Feb 20, mark your calendars), he seemed to really perk up. That was some much-needed perkiness for me because the daily lamentations of missing Daddy were starting to wear me out.

I'm ready for warmer weather so we can do things outside. But we're staying busy with Legos and Team Fortress 2 indoors. His hair is So. Damn. Long. But he conditions it and combs it and only occasionally complains about tangles so he's welcome to do this thing. It's not like he's getting drafted anytime soon.

He took the Harry Potter test and is Hufflepuff all the way, but really we already knew that. ❤️

Washington Monument photo bomb

Facebook Archive - February 2018

February 14 - “I made a mistake on Gia’s card. It says ‘Never have I hurt you.’ And that’s not true because I have hurt her feelings sometimes.”

(shared with permission)

Also, Ian received a valentine from his best (male) friend Jemari. It said that “Ian is a good friend and he is smot (sic) and God blessed Ian to past (sic) a grade.”

February 23 - Ian, watching Blazing Saddles: “Why are they so mean to the black people?”
Me: “Because it’s 1871.”
Ian: “But slavery was over by then.”
Me: “Child. We’ve talked about this. Labor prisons? Unfair housing practices? The New Jim Crow?” 
Ian: “Oh, right! Man, people can be so stupid.”
Me: “Preach.”