Hallowe'en 2025

 

For Joel-- with more to come another day...or year.

(We typecast Aidan as the March Hare, and he delivered.)

A Word She Knows

At bedtime your names, spoken, act on her
Like a two-toned bell on Pavlov's dog.
She waves a small hand,
Secure in the fact
She knows best,
And her lips twist
To form a soft 'bye,' which she repeats
A score of times, while my heart
Beats an involuntary echo, before
She sinks into the nest I built
Of blankets for her rest.

For Grampa V.

Before I knew names,
Colors caught my eye.

The trees were bare
But you wore fall with charm--
Gold, brown, and plum
For her russet and deep green. 

Camera heavy on your neck, with a small smile
And crinkled eyes, you shuffled down the aisle.

Though strangers, you sought us
To give comfort for loss,
Not judgement of grief,
On a day confused by wounds and joy.

Eleven months later in hospital light,
I heard the grievous news
That when our little one flew
Earth for heaven, you did, too.

Your wife and you together
Taught that small words have weight, 
Comfort comes quietly in a corner, 
And it takes just one meeting
To miss a great man.

And when I think of our baby, I see
Gold, brown, and plum
With russet and deep green.

Happiness is This Guy, Me, and the Babies: Summer 2024

The Google-Creature is bullying me to declutter storage before It lets me make a menu in its docs, and I ran across a photo that I refuse to declutter. This here? A true-blue manly man. <3

November 2023

 

November of 2023 was not an easy month, but there are scant pictures, so it's an easy month to blog!

Ransom turned three years old, Mildred took pictures of my PitterPat belly, and we had our last Thanksgiving with Mildred living near. 

November is the month we raid the cow cornfields for ears the machines left behind. I.e. Corn Kernels Everywhere Month. 

Millie unconsciously becomes a Vermeer painting.

Ransom's Birthday: November 13th, 2023

 

Ransom turns three. Our little boy who kept asking when Annika was going to show up on his birthday (knowing that he's her favorite), a little boy who was then young enough to try to see the baby by shining a flashlight into my bellybutton, and a little boy who is turning FIVE in three months. 😂

(Zeke was the cake bouncer, protecting those candle-wishes from unsavory extinguishers.)

Thanksgiving 2023

 

Annika was in Virginia, and we had only 11 guests besides our family. There was still plenty of pie.

Phone Lephtovers: November 2023

Crummy Phone Photos.

I went on a Halal Bites/Bridge date with Mildred to try to learn more about Henry. I loved spending time with her, but it didn't work. (We've since gotten to know Henry. He's a great guy. I don't know what she was trying to hide.)

Rebecca made the Mama and the girls in the family cry with surprise doughnuts and gifts right after Annika moved away. 

Aidan sobbed on Annika's wedding day and cried lots in the days following, but doughnuts do not make HIM cry. 

This is probably when my phone became a tool to make goofy faces at someone ten hours away.

I went on a Halal Bites/Bridge date with three girls who did not want the world to know that they were out in public with me. We did not talk about boys. (Thank goodness.)

Lots of pictures we sent to Annika.

Another picture I took to send to Annika. Don't ask why she's hiding in a corner. I don't know. 

FATDOG gaming. (Friday After Thanksgiving Day of Gaming, not to be confused with FATFROG, which is Friday After Thanksgiving Family Reunion of Gaming.)

We came home one day in November to find a contractor bag filled with half a deer. Rick made a similar delivery in 2019, but we hadn't seen him in a couple of years. I didn't have a way to thank him, but his kindness to our family meant a lot.  

And his note still makes me super-happy. (All you half-hearted Southerners reading, take note. This is the way a true Southern man raised in the mountains talks.)