But Facebook, Do I Have to Remember?

If you're on Facebook, which even Mama H is these days (can you believe it?!), then you probably get reminded all the time of pictures you posted on this date in years past. I think someone in California was like, how can we force people to look at other people's weddings and babies over and over and over again without the original poster being even more obnoxious than they already might be.

So, issue #1 - if I already liked the picture in the past I don't know if it makes me a bad person not to like it again however many years later. I mean, some posts are hilarious or over the top precious, and it is interesting to see time flying for things like first days of school and such. But honestly, that's not always the case.

Issue #2 though is that Facebook has decided to remind me, at least once a week, that I used to be in this giddy, adorable relationship. The kind that makes you post cute photos of you and your boyfriend/fiance/spouse doing cutesy date activities because you're so darn happy and it will never end.

Now I don't negate the happiness. Read the blog. I was head over heels enamored for a very long time. I just sometimes wake up and remember the state JG and I have now found ourselves in and the last thing I want to do is see how awesome we were. I'm glad we were. I truly am. I love our history and our beginning and more than anything I love these crazy, awesome. adorable. ridiculous boys we created together. They're the absolute best ever. I will always be thankful I fell in love in New York and took a risk on the man I married because all the heartache is still worth it. And, as evidenced in the flashbacks, most of it for a very long time was not heartache. It was bliss and comfort and companionship.

So maybe there's a button that a younger millennial can show me to avoid the barrage of happy memories? Or maybe part of moving on and adapting to change is learning how to accept the past being launched at your face when you'd really rather be mindlessly scrolling and liking happy babies and weddings and vacation getaways.

I don't know.

Either way, it's not like it would help me forget the dates that matter over the summer and fall months. I mean, I still remember birthdays of kids I went to elementary school with. I'm not going to forget August 15th. November 12th. September 6th. Or September 4th or 5th or the other September 6th that eventually led to February 6th. Maybe this whole elephant brain is gonna get me year after year even if I do take a Facebook hiatus.

But when I invent my time machine - along with unsending quite a few emails, being way more thoughtful with certain college decisions, finding the cross streets of the bar from spectacle night, and spending more time with Mom-Mom that final year - I'm going to insert a bunch of ridiculous posts on Facebook to be seen only by me, so that when I return to the present 2017 I can be reminded of cute things like rabbits and pigs napping together, clouds that look like unicorns, me sleeping eight hours uninterrupted and so on. Facebook can remind me of that as much as it wants. I'll smile as I start my daily scroll. I won't repost unless it's over the top adorable. And when I'm ready for all the emotions, then I'll click on old albums or return to old blog posts here to relive the magical and heart-wrenching story of my first great love.

Dear Mom-Mom

Dear Mom-Mom,

I passed a funeral procession on the highway today and immediately began crying. Sobbing. Not quite like the day of your funeral, when I couldn't even walk unassisted, but not a sweet, nostalgic tear either. My two boys you've never met were asleep in the backseat, Sister Act the musical was rocking in the speakers, and I just broke down.

I miss you.

I miss playing cards with you for hours at your kitchen table.  I miss that small fan that sat on your counter - no match for the freezing central air at my house - and your perfectly stocked snack drawer. I miss Boggle and perms and even the plastic runway that kept your dining room carpet clean.  I miss your stories and your smile and your sense of fashion and swinging on your front porch watching lightning bugs.  I miss it all. Every detail.

I tell J-Man about you.  Soon I'll be able to tell PDG and MDG all about you too.  I mention you when we drive by your house, though with what those new tenants have done there, it's hard to see it as your house anymore.  It looks like an episode of Hoarders. It kind of hurts my heart.

I recently just posted a vacation photo to facebook received the sweetest note from your old neighbor. She misses you too. How could we not?

It probably doesn't help my emotional state that it's almost exactly eight years to the day since you passed. Every year around now I mark another year since starting to fall in love with my J-Man and since saying good-bye to you. Talk about a bittersweet season.

It probably doesn't help either that I'm scheduled to teach about eternal families on Sunday.  When I think of my forever family, you're obviously a part of it. I like to think that you're waiting for me up/out there. Hopefully proud of who I'm becoming. Excited to share countless more years with me, and my siblings, and our children.

With all this in my mind, how could I not break down at the sight of 10+ cars, lights flashing, following the hearse of someone they hold dear en route to his or her final resting place?

I try not to spend too much time dwelling on the past, but now and again I can't help but remember twenty-two years' worth of memories living a mile down the road from you. So when I cry like today, it's not all sadness. It's happiness to have something to be sad about. It's love. It's hope. It's gratitude. But yes, it's also missing one of the most amazing women I've ever met.

Meatloaf, Mac n Cheese, and Mom-Mom

My grandmother has been on my mind a lot lately.

There's no particular reason.  It isn't the anniversary of any particular milestone for her.  I haven't been back home for a few weeks.  I've just been thinking about her.

Growing up my siblings and I spent a lot of time at Mom-Mom's house.  She lived a mile down the road - just far enough to ride our bikes independently and feel like we were in a whole new place.  Just short enough that Mama and Papa H never had to worry about the trip.

When I was younger I would look forward to the random but frequent dinners at Mom-Mom's. Poppa passed away when I was only five or so, leaving most of my childhood to be just her.  I loved her house.  I loved dinners there and breakfasts there and the snack drawer that I'm pretty sure every grandmother has - stocked of course with her grandkids' favorites.

While I have no idea why, around her table was a rolling office chair with torn black pleather patched with duct tape.  That's where I sat.  I could spin in circles and feel as tall as Big Bro and Big Sis.  I could feel as important as any grown up.  I'd sit there when she'd perm my hair.  I'd sit there when we'd play heated round after round of Boggle.  I'd sit there for any meal when Mama H needed a night off and we got to go to Mom-Mom's.

Mom-Mom could cook almost anything, and always from scratch.  A generational gift/burden I suppose.  Still, there was one meal that was so simple it almost didn't fit her at all, and I remember it as a favorite: meatloaf, Stouffer's mac n cheese, and a veggie (usually lima beans).

I guess in part because I have been thinking of her so much this week, I found myself craving and buying a box of Stouffer's at the store.  And then, not sure what to make for Sunday dinner, searching the internet for quick and easy meatloaf recipes.  And without further thought, popping open a can of lima beans from the cupboard.

Sidenote - I apparently missed some of PDG's hunger cues as he was so excited to see me cooking that he started just grabbing cold beans straight from the can like he hadn't eaten in days.  I didn't stop him because 1) he was happy 2) it was super cute and 3) I try to never discourage vegetables

Anyway, as I sat around the table with my boys I felt grateful.  How lucky I am to have grown up so close to one of my grandparents.  How lucky my parents must've felt as well.  How lucky I am now that the hour and a half drive back home can feel as short as that familiar bike ride when I need Mama and Papa H, or PDG needs them, or Mama and Papa H need to see their boys.

I still miss Mom-Mom dearly.  I miss her laugh and stories and care.  I wish J-Man got to meet her and that she'd gotten to hold my babies just once.  But at least I have a million tiny memories.  Even if they are as simple as a meatloaf dinner on a rainy Sunday night.

My Forever Family

One of the main reasons my family decided to join our church twenty years (and a few weeks) ago was the idea that families can be together forever.  There are songs about this theme sung by the littlest children in Sunday school to the oldest adults in worldwide telecast events.  Whether or not you believe in the tenants of the faith that go along with such a notion, I think we can all agree that the idea of a forever family is hard to get upset about.

I've imagined heaven in all sorts of ways growing up.  Family has always been involved but angels, clouds, flight and so on have shifted in the images.  At some point I realized that beyond the core beliefs I have, the rest is really a crap shoot and the imagery unimportant.  That is, until I got pregnant.

Sometime after I found out there was a little one growing right in my own body, I started having vivid dreams. Apparently this is a normal pregnancy occurrence.  Some are silly, like last night's where I was trapped in the parking garage at my doctor's office and couldn't find a spot.  Some are terrifying.  Some make me smile.  All of them feel as real as day.  My favorites, though, are the ones with my grandmother and aunt.

Both of these ladies passed away during the two years I was teaching in New York.  As I mentioned, my grandmother and I had a moment of closure right as I was falling in love with my J-Man.  They never met, yet I can't help but imagine she'd give her full blessing.  My aunt passed the next year, too young of course, after much pain that thankfully her mother didn't have to watch her endure.

In my dreams, the three of us will all be together, in the slanted closets of my grandmother's house, trying on dresses.  Or we'll sit around her kitchen table, drinking from an Uh-Huh Pepsi glass while someone reheats spoonbread in the skinny oven.  We're always laughing and I'm always safe.  When I wake, I close my eyes tight to see if I can visit them for just a few minutes longer.

I'm not loony, so I understand that the logical explanation is that in my subconscious, when I think of motherhood I think of my own mother and her family, I think of the losses my aunt experienced with two stillborns, I think of myself as a child.  The loving experiences I recall are the kinds of moments that my own mother, sister and I will create for PDG one day.  I get it.  Logic and science and all.

But I prefer this other 2% of my brain that imagines why else I dream of them so often.  I like imagining my aunt, in a beautifully perfect heaven, raising her two children as she never could on earth.  I like the image of my grandmother making rolls that the rest of her spirit world can enjoy (if you can taste things in heaven, which I hope you can, because food is truly heavenly).  I visualize the two of them keeping an eye on PDG, while he waits for his grand entrance.  That maybe for the past three years they've all been together.  Perhaps laughing at my impatience to have him come join me here in a world where we hurt and fight and leave too soon.

Who knows, right?  Maybe this is all silliness and the truth is that things end when they end and we are all just results of reproductive cells that found each other and started multiplying until one day they stop.

I prefer the places I've created in my mind.  I like thinking that the same people who loved me as a child are loving my child right now.  I cherish my dreams that make mortal people temporarily immortal.  Who am I hurting, after all?

My Three Rings

Sometimes when I'm bored at work I stare at my hands.  Not because they're long and skinny and remind me of the skeleton from my life science classroom.  (They do though.  It's unfortunate.)  Instead I look at my three rings.  I think about each of them. Twirl them around so that the diamonds face the keyboard, and press my thumbs against the faces. And I remember how blessed I am.

I wear three rings on two fingers.

The left hand is the obvious hand.  There is the simple band with inset baby sparkles. I remember walking down the aisle, inside, and looking at my handsome husband-to-be.  I remember his vows.  His promise not to put my good jeans in the dryer, and to put the toilet seat down.  I remember his little brother, adorable best man, down on his knee, ring held high in the air for J-Man to place on my shaking hand.  I remember that it felt perfect.  Absolutely perfect.

Above the band I feel the prongs on my emerald cut that I only realized I wanted when I realized I wanted a ring at all. Something to not make my fingers seem so long. I remember that night I was instructed to bring a flashlight, hat, and a camera and we skipped down 59th street because he said I'd want to remember skipping, and how he sat me on that bench in central park, and how he told me he loved me and that he'd lied to me but that the lie was that he'd already gotten his americorps check and how he'd spent it and how he wanted me to be with him for the rest of our lives.  I don't remember saying yes because I didn't.  But with some prodding I did spurt out an "of course" that I have never meant more whole-heartedly that night.  And I remember holding the pole on the subway with my left hand for the world to see, and knowing that once I used that finger for my CTR ring, to remind me to choose wisely, and now I had chosen. And the world could see that I had chosen, and had said yes (well, of course) and I was making the right choice and I was happy. 

And I smile. For the man in my life, and the woman I am with him.

With the right hand I hold my thumb over the ornately, unique silver ring and it's small, reflective center.  I think of the woman who gave me this ring. I remember her as a lady.  A lady if ever there were one.  I remember playing in her jewelry box, examining pearls and silver.  Peeking in her closet to see identical one-inch pumps of every shade imaginable.  I remember telling her that if she would leave me this ring I would be honored for life.  And I remember her giving it to me, senior year of college, telling me that I shouldn't have to wait for something to happen to her before I wore it.

I remember sliding it on my finger and thinking that I might be a lady too.  That one day a man might want to marry me.  Broken, disillusioned me.  I remember wanting to make her proud.  Wanting to wear this ring without ceasing so that I could always remember her. The way she smiled. The way she brushed my hair and told me stories of high school in Washington DC in the 1940s.  Stories about her brother teaching her to stay away from those "sweet" drinks.  Stories of the other school girls who were jealous of her light skin and beautiful face.  Stories of her sacrifice to raise a family with a husband working nights and sometimes days too.  Stories that ingrained in me one solid, undeniable truth: as a black woman I can be anything, including beautiful.

When I wear this ring I remember all of this.  And I remember the night that she passed away. When I told her I loved her on a busy New York street.  She couldn't respond, too paralyzed from the stroke, but they say she heard me.  They say after she had heard all of us, the rest of the family in the room, and me on the phone, that she found rest.  She found peace that she had earned.  That night, my J-Man let me cry in his bed until I couldn't breathe.  He was helpless and my tears made me raw.  He held me, and I let him. 

And while I couldn't know it yet, I somehow already sensed that the night was a beginning and an end.  That this woman had prepared me, along with my mother, along with my sister, along with the other amazing women whose footsteps I am blessed to follow, she had prepared me to let someone love me.  And this man, the one who held me, and who let me soak his pillows with my sadness, would one day bless me with two more rings to tell me that I am loved.  I am a lady in my own right.  I am beautiful.

So as my thumbs slide each ring back to their upright position, I reflect on this.  And I think what I will tell my daughters one day, should I ever be so honored.  And I smile. Because the rings don't tell me any of this.  They just remind me of all the perfect memories I've formed along the way.