Monday, August 29, 2005

Memories

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I followed the school bus in on my way to work this morning. We stopped at this house where the whole family was standing outside, seeing little Bobbie off to his first day of school. Not just mom and dad and little sis...but also TWO grandmas and what looked to be two aunts. It was a truly bittersweet moment for mom...you could see it on her face. The joy that her baby had grown and was taking his first really independent steps in the world...and the sadness that her baby had grown and was taking his first really independent steps in the world. She took his picture as he boarded the bus so she could remember this moment on this day forever. While I'm sure he'll be thrilled with that when he's sixteen, there will come a time later in his life when he will understand and he'll look at that picture, smile, and remember all those who loved him standing on the front porch and waving goodbye for the day.
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We found the note. It is nothing special...a quickly penned note on printer paper in standard blue ballpoint. But it holds so much hope, so much happiness, so many dreams, that I needed to hang on to it. It's the note that I wrote and hung on the bathroom mirror for Steve the morning I found out I was pregnant with Alex. It had been lost and feared gone forever, possibly mistakenly thrown in the trash or accidentally used as a three-year-olds doodle page. But it had simply been shuffled in with some papers that were sitting in our never-cleaned desk. We picked up a new desk at a garage sale this weekend and had to clean out the old one and consolidate our junk. And there it was...

It says:
Congratulations! You're going to be a Daddy again. I hope you're ready. I love you. Me

I miss them.

I miss Alex.
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We sold the stroller we used for Sam. We sold the exersaucer we used for Sam. We sold some of Sam's old clothes. Now I understand, "They grow up so fast."

We were getting ready to leave the house yesterday when Sam looks at me and says, "Mommy, I'll be on the porch in case you need me." My breath literally caught in my chest. He's so grown up already.
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The "old" computer (the lightening fried doorstop) has now been replace by a fast moving, well-equipped, slick Gateway laptop. We're even entering the world of wireless computing. It's going to be great. Now I just have to figure out how to get my 3000+ Sam pictures from their Mac-formatted disks.
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2 comments:

lorem ipsum said...

I did a giant annotated photo album (some would call it a scrapbook) of our honeymoon and gave it to my husband for our first anniversary, first being paper. On the last page I wrote about what a year it's been and how there was so much more to come, with our 'new project due in September.'

That day we went to the doctor and she couldn't find the heartbeat.

I imagine that one day we will have a kid who reads that book and will wonder what that page at the end was all about. I hope you will, too, who will find that paper and comfort you for what will have happened long, long ago.

Jillian said...

As a mum who's had a few 'first days' that picture you painted brought a lump to my throat. They do grow so fast and say the most grown up things. Sam sounds like such a little character - so cheeky on one hand and so caring on the other:)

Mom

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