Candy everyone wants

The day before we left our mountain vacation, we drove along a winding mountain road to the very top of a smooth peak on the border of North Carolina and South Carolina. We were there to find and cut our Christmas tree.

As we milled about the tree farm, a golden retriever sidled up to Reilly and nuzzled her arm. Reilly laughed and gave her a pet. After choosing our tree the dog was still following us around, so I asked the owner of the tree farm who he belonged to. The man said that he didn't know, that he had seen the dog running around and that it had probably been dumped. The dog had no collar or identification, and though it was relatively clean, the dog was thin and I could feel his ribs when I bent down to pet him.

I told Shawn that we should take him home. She sort of did a double-take, knowing that impulsiveness is not my forte', but when she saw that I was serious, said, "Yes! Let's take him home!"

She asked Reilly what we would name him, and Reilly said, "Candy." This is actually a pretty high compliment from Reilly, considering that candy is her favorite thing.

We put the christmas tree on top of the truck, and Candy inside the truck, and told the tree farm man that we were going to take him with us. He said that it was a great idea, but that we might want to drive up the mountain a bit and check to see if anyone had lost him.

So, we drove up the mountain, past countless multi-million dollar estates, and finally came to a house that had a car out front. I got out and knocked on the door to the cabin, and a crazy old bat lady came out and said, "That's what's-his-name's dog. Barry. He does some of the electric and plumbing work around here. I'll call him. Hopefully he hasn't had too many beers yet and he can drive up and get Gomer--that's the dog's name. His other dog just got shot the other day from wandering around someone else's property. He'd just be sick if you took him."

She got ahold of the man and said he would meet us at the Christmas tree farm. When I got back in the truck, I said, "Well, the bad news is that this dog already has a name. It's Gomer." And when I said his name, the dog wagged his tail and looked up at me.

We drove down to the tree farm, and up pulled a beat-up pickup truck. In it was a scraggly man wearing a Gators hat. I let the dog out of the truck and the dog walked over with his tail between his legs. Gomer refused to get in the truck, and cowered when Barry drew near.

Reilly began to cry hysterically for Candy.

My dad summed up the situation best when he said, "We had a choice between doing the right thing, and doing the right thing."

Good luck, Candy. We'll miss you.

Gone Catchin'

A few photos from my fising trip with my father.

This is a nice river trout, caught on a March Brown fly:

Here is a nice lake trout, caught on a live worm suspended below a slip bobber.

Here is dad with what you would define as a "mess of fish":

Here's one memory I didn't remember

My father dropped by the other day and gave me a brown jewelry case. He said that Larry (my grandfather) had found it while clearing out grandma's things. In the case was a macaroni necklace that I had made for her--according to the piece of paper she had kept with it--in 4th grade.

Great Expectations, Part II

When I was a boy, my grandmother lived just down the street from us for a short time. Every few weeks my brother and I would pack up our little blue suitcases and head over to her apartment for a sleepover. Our suitcases were blue leather and had the phrase, “I’m going to grandma’s” in white lettering on the front.

The best part about going to grandma’s was not the evening spent with her, but rather the next morning, when she would cook my brother and me a country breakfast. Coming from a house where cereal was king, the eggs and sausage and pancakes that my grandma cooked were simply awesome. She always made biscuits, which was my brother’s favorite food. He would eat them loaded with butter. I ate them the same way grandma did—with a dab of honey.

I still prefer my biscuits this way, and I guess that is one of those things that grandma has left with me, now that she is gone.

The story that grandma liked to tell was of the morning that we woke up and didn’t smell the sausage in the pan. There was no butter on the table, no biscuits in the oven. On the table was a cereal box, two bowls, and a gallon of milk.

When I got home that day, I went straight to my mom and said, “Mom, you won’t believe what grandma fed us today—cereal!” I guess my mom told my grandma this story later in the day, and I bet they had a good chuckle together at the crushing of my breakfast expectations.

This was my grandma’s favorite story to tell about me, and she told it so beautifully, the way that country folks are prone to do, and I can still hear her as she delivered the punch line at the end of the story, the way she imitated the derisive tone I used when I spat out the offensive word cereal, as if she had fed us gruel.

We would laugh together every time she told that story, and despite its repetition, I never grew tired of hearing it.

Texas

Here are some photos from my trip to Texas for grandma's funeral. I can't tell you how glad I was to make the trip. To view, Click Here.

Evelyn Overcast (1927-2008)

It is impossible to sum up a life in only a blog entry, and I don’t wish to try. I might choose a few select stories that I remember of my grandmother and me, and I might in future entries, but not today.

Of course I could have visited her more. I wonder if I might have been a better grandson but is it fair to ask that without considering if she could have a been a better grandmother?

What matters in the end is that she lived a full, long life. And when it was time for her to go, she was enabled to do so with the dignity befitting such a life.

I have a voicemail on my phone. It is from grandma, and it is dated June 24th, just a few days before the stroke that would eventually claim her life. On it she asks to be reminded of my mother’s birthday. My mother had just visited her, and was the last to see her.

It is tough to reconcile this voice with my grandmother post-stroke, a stroke that stole from her her voice.

Even harder is it to know that aside from memories and photographs, this is all I have left of her, a twenty second message of a life that now has passed.

To all those concerned, an update:

Grandma had a stroke—a blood clot in the brain—which eventually burst and caused an open bleed in her brain. Though she can move her left arm and can move her head a bit, all other bodily functions are beyond her scope of ability, and that goes for everything from speaking to using the bathroom. She will remain in ICU for a bit longer, and then will be transferred to an assisted care facility to live out what remains of her life, which feels like a very sad, sad thing to write.

that it was

I learned this morning that my grandmother had a stroke, and that she was in the ICU, and that it was one of those situations that it was important to see her right away, just in case.

When I saw her, it was as if I was not seeing her; she looked like her worst prognosis, and yet when I held her hand—her one working hand—she spun my wedding band on my finger and looked at me with her intense blue eyes.

Let’s just say that I thought she was trying to tell me something, and the message was loud and clear.

Little Girl Blue

While we were away in New York, Reilly stayed over at her grandma and grandpa’s house. One of the cuter stories that came out of that weekend follows:

When Shawn was a toddler, her mom used to sing her the song “Little Boy Blue.”

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn.
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
Where is the boy that looks after the sheep?"
He's under the haycock, fast asleep."
Will you wake him? "No, not I;
For if I do, he'll be sure to cry."

When Shawn’s mother (aka “Donna,” aka "Grandma") would say the line, “Will you wake him?" little Shawn would answer, “No, not I” and then her mother would finish the song.

Donna decided to continue that tradition this weekend by teaching Reilly “Little Boy Blue.”

However, when Donna sang the line, “Will you wake him?” Reilly would respond, “Yes! Wake him up!”

Three by Midnight

Since Shawn and Donna are in New York this week, yesterday afternoon I packed up Reilly and headed on over to her Nana’s for a good, old-fashioned sleepover. By the time we arrived at her house, it was pouring rain out. Since Reilly was freaking out over the constraints of her car seat, I went out in the rain and set her free. My mom greeted us at the door with all the exuberance of a proud grandmother, waiting on her doorstep with a towel to dry off her granddaughter, lest the rain melt her sugar, spice, and all things nice. Once inside, I set to work assembling a booster seat and a protective gate for the staircase, while Reilly and her Nana set to work in the kitchen, my mom spreading out various books and simple toys for Reilly to play with.

Later, I joined them in the kitchen and collapsed, exhausted, in Reilly’s orange beanbag chair. As I watched Reilly and her Nana dropping spools into an empty oatmeal canister I thought about of one of the overarching reasons we moved to Florida: it is just too damn hard to raise a child with only two people (let alone one). And since I had been flying solo as Mr. Mom for three days running, it was a tremendous relief for me to have just a few minutes where I wasn’t entirely responsible for the welfare of my child.

A short time later, my friend Aaron and his wife Melissa arrived, as well as Aaron’s mom, Gale. Growing up, Aaron was my neighbor and best friend, and Gale often watched over me like a second mother. I often called her “mom.” It made sense, then, that Gale embraced Reilly as she would her own grandchild. Soon, Reilly was in full-on play mode with two grandmothers catering to her every whim. I’ve never seen more peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek, and other heavily-hyphenated games being played in my life.

Throughout all of this I sat in the dining room with Aaron and Missy, catching up with them and watching the two grandmas at work with their granddaughter. Since Gale and my mother are both elementary school educators, it was awesome to watch the way they played with Reilly. They introduced a learning component into everything they did with her. By the time 9:00 rolled around, they had her counting to two. If it wasn’t already and hour past her bedtime, I bet we might have seen the number three by midnight.

As I did the final diaper change and administration of Benadryl (Reilly has a cold), I wondered why the scene downstairs had given me such a sense of relief. I guess the reason comes from the fact that Shawn and I work so hard to make Reilly as safe and smart and happy as we can, but we can only do so much. To see my mothers contributing to my daughter’s happiness and education was so moving, and I felt some of the burden of parenting lift from my shoulders. Raising a child is such a big responsibility that to have someone else sharing in that responsibility is a blessing. And though family and friends have been helping us from the beginning, last night I realized for the first time that we don’t have to do it all on our own

Animal Cracker Appetizer

Today, Reilly and I took a trip over to St. Petersburg to see Nana at her school. Reilly was very excited to find that the rooms had chairs and desks were just her size.


We took a tour of the school and visited the classrooms of my mother's friends and colleagues. Everyone was very excited to meet the granddaughter of Ms. Overcast. Apparently, my mom talks a lot about Reilly, because my daughter needed no introduction! I also got to see my old friend Savannah, who is entering the 8th grade this year. She was once one of my mother's students, and is a fantastic poet and artist.

After the introductions, Reilly took her Nana on a tour of the hallways while we waited for the rain to abate.

All of the meeting and greeting that Reilly did really worked up her appetite, so Nana offered her some animal crackers. Even though Reilly loves animal crackers, we only let her have a few so that she wouldn't spoil her dinner.

A short time later, I packed up Reilly and we headed back to Seminole. Instead of her usual squalling, Reilly was very quiet for most of the ride home. When we go to a red light, I peered back at her and found out why she was so quiet. Apparently, I had left the diaper bag too close to the carseat, and Reilly was able to get ahold of the leftover animal crackers. She then dumped them in her lap for easy access.

What was most surprising is that when we returned home and set Reilly up for dinner, she ate more than she ever has, devouring two slices of deli chicken, half a cup of Blues Clues yogurt, and a sliver of banana bread. Perhaps we should give her animal crackers as an appetizer every day?

All in Time

The boxes are unpacked. We have Reilly’s crib up, with Elmo sitting in his corner, and diapers are stacked and ready on the changing table. The cabinets have been baby-proofed. Reilly’s toys are all over the living room. Yet, despite getting things in order, we all feel a bit out of sorts. Shawn and I are still adjusting to what should be a vacation, but isn’t. I miss the City. Shawn misses the City terribly.

Reilly loves her new home. Like our old apartment, her favorite place is still the bathroom. She likes to go in, shut the door, and pull the TP off the roll. I let her do it because it makes me laugh. At some point, I know I’ll have to undo this habit, or at least start keeping the door shut, but for now, unwinding the TP roll is entertainment for two.

Reilly’s new best friend is Leia, our old dog. Reilly loves to feed Leia her dog food piece by piece, while also trying to sneak a nugget or two into her own mouth. Leia is extremely patient with this little invader, and tolerates Reilly’s shrieking and crying and tail pulling. For her part, Leia likes Reilly too, especially when Reilly is eating Cheerios. Since Reilly drops three Cheerio’s for every one she gets in her mouth, Leia follows her around to keep the floor clean.

Reilly also has been enjoying the attention of her family, swimming with Aunt Morgan, eating applesauce with Papa Bear and Granny, riding in her Radio Flyer wagon with Nana, and going out to lunch with Grandma Donna. From Grandpa Craig, Reilly only asks for one thing: a bite of his sandwich. He always complies. What else is a grandfather for?

The car still presents a challenge for us, as Reilly hates being constricted to her carseat. We try to time car trips around Reilly’s naptime so that we can give her the pacifier. (As you’ll remember, under the Law of the Pacifier, this is an acceptable practice.) If we take her out and it is not her naptime, we brace ourselves for a good bout of frustrated crying.

We all have things to adjust to. Reilly to her carseat. Shawn to working from home. As for me, you’ll notice that I’ve yet to update my profile on this blog. I don’t quite feel ready to make the change because I don’t yet know what my identity is here—who I am, how I fit into this house, this city, this state. Still, I remain an optimist, as I know that all things come in time.

We-Haul

One of the aspects of packing up our apartment that I hadn't anticipated was how disorienting it would be for Reilly, who clearly seemed confused at what had happened to her living space. Still, she took it in stride, and made the best out of the situation by exploring the various boxes stacked around the apartment. Pictured below is Reilly climbing the plastic and cardboard mountain that had taken over our living room.


On Saturday, my good friend Seth joined me (and two hired movers) in the arduous process of moving the contents of our apartment down four floors and across the sidewalk to the U-Haul. It took us two hours and an awful lot of sweat and cursing, but by 2:00pm, the task had been completed. Seth and I celebrated the event by having a cold Budweiser out front on the stoop. Cindy and Abby, who had been watching the truck, made small talk with us. We said goodbye a short time later, none of us making a big deal out of it, but as the door closed on their final goodbyes, the gravity of the parting took hold.

I distracted myself by jumping into the final cleaning of the apartment. My dad, who had arrived a few minutes earlier, vacuumed the floors. I mopped the kitchen. Before we left, I snapped a picture of the space where Reilly had been in the picture posted above.

It took my dad and I three days (two nights) to complete the 24 hour trip to Florida. It was great to have someone like my dad to make the trip with, and especially cool to stop and see my brother in Virginia. When you only get to see a sibling twice a year, adding another visit is priceless.

We drove a mixture of interstate and country highways, giving us a nice blend of convenience and authenticity. I saw an alligator swimming a muddy stream in Georgia, pecan plantations in South Carolina, and farm after farm of soybeans, tobacco, and corn in Virginia. The south has such beautiful country, and as the smell of smog gave way to the smell of earth, I felt calm and happy.

Still, I couldn't shake my doubts of what the future holds for us, the vortex of circumstance and chance which is so powerful when a family uproots their collective lives to start anew. Like speeding through the blur of a tunnel, the road stretches surely before us, but what lies ahead is uncertain and unknown.

341 days

Cape Cod has always been a very special place for me. I spent all of my formative summers there, from Reilly’s age all the way up to my middle teens. Every little corner of Brewster carries with it a memory for me, from the big oak tree of the cemetery to the lifeguard chair down on the beach.

My mom’s side of the family is well rooted in the area, and each year that I go to the Cape, it ends up being a reunion of sorts. This year was no different, in that we shared a cottage with my cousin Lesli, her husband Chris, and their daughter (and my god-daughter) Sophia. Also present were my aunt Sandy and uncle Peter, my cousin Mike, and my cousin Keri, her husband Doug, and their kids Madeline and Logan.

Why list all this family? They provided endless entertainment for Reilly, especially all the kids. Reilly learned from her cousins very quickly, picking up their mannerisms, their jokes, their words. Before the trip, Reilly’s vocabulary included the words: hi, bye, ba-ba, duck, dog, baby, ball, and thank you. After the trip, she has included a new word in her lexicon: “uh-oh.” This morning, when she was done with her breakfast, she threw the remaining blueberries off her tray and said “uh-oh” as each hit the floor.

Reilly probably learned the most from her Nana, who offered to take Reilly at every spare moment. Most often, Reilly would take her Nana by the hand and lead her over to the nearby playground, where they would alternate between the ball court and the swings. My favorite thing my mom taught Reilly was how to kick a soccer ball. I didn’t think my daughter was old enough to have the gumption necessary to consciously kick a ball, but my mother has more faith, and within just a few minutes, had Reilly kicking away.

Between modeling the behavior of her cousins and the frequent trips to the playground with Nana, Reilly learned a skill that she’ll use for the rest of her life. That’s right, readers, we now have a walker on our hands. If I had to put a date on it, I’d say yesterday was the day where she did more walking than crawling. Today, she hasn’t crawled yet. This morning she strung together 20 consecutive steps to the applause and wonder of her parents.

The great thing about her walking is that it tires her out very quickly. In fact, she is sleeping as I write this entry, her little one-year-old body filling up the crib, a big girl at last.

I would now like to introduce...

On May 18th of this year, my little brother, Stephen, and his long-term girlfriend, Ashley, tied the knot. They were married in a civil ceremony at city hall in Newport News, Virginia, just outside of their base. My brother called, elated, and told me of his news, and I wished him well, and of course spoke to Ashley to welcome her to the family. He then swore me to secrecy. The news was not supposed to go beyond me and Shawn.

I am terrible of keeping secrets, so a part of me felt a little trepidation at this responsibility. The way I usually keep a secret is by pretending whatever it was never happened, and banishing any thought of it from my mind. But I wanted to think of my newly married brother, I was excited and wanted to shout the news from the rooftops.

Part of me was okay with the whole secret business. I had helped guide Stephen and Ashley through their choice of how, when and where to get married. It was important to both of them that they get married before she shipped to Iraq for her six-month tour of duty, but they didn’t want to rush into such an important decision. The fact that they were so carefully considering their options only proved to me how serious they were taking their union, and how much they loved each other. I gave them my unequivocal blessing, and it felt really great that my brother and his fiancée had asked me for my advice. It was important to me that my brother trusted me, and that my opinion was valuable to him.

***

At weddings, the DJ always announces the bridal party couple by couple, playing some funky music as each pair dances into the reception. The high point of this event is the last couple—the bride and groom—who enter the room to riotous applause. Since my brother and his new bride haven’t had a reception yet, I thought it would be appropriate for me to introduce them to you all.

(Hold on while I put on my Jock Jams CD.)

“And now, I would like to introduce to you, your bride and groom, Ashely and Stephen Overcast!”



I love you guys.

In Memoriam

Shawn and I took Reilly to Flagler Beach, Florida this past weekend. There we met up with Shawn’s father’s side of the family: Grandpa, Grandma, Craig, Donna, Danny, Chris, Jimmy, Chuck, Jay, Sam, Savannah, Cindy and John. Flagler was chosen because it was close to the grandparent’s home in Palm Coast, and also to incorporate a vacation aspect to a trip that had a more serious purpose.

It was several months ago that Shawn’s aunt Christine died. She passed away from breast cancer that had metastasized to her liver. Christine fought it until the very end, but sometimes the fight is not fair, and is so one-sided that your opponent has an impossible advantage.

As if the cancer were not enough, during chemo she lost her home and her hospital in Hurricane Katrina, and was forced to drift, ill and homeless, from relative to relative. At one point, she came to the City to visit Sloan Kettering for a second opinion, diagnosis and treatment. When we visited her at the Miracle House she was tired, her skin a little golden, her hair growing back in grey. But she was sharp enough. Reilly got to meet her great aunt, we got to have a meal together, and to hug hello and goodbye.

Christine asked to be cremated, and for her ashes to be cast out into the ocean at dawn. Shawn tells me it was a beautiful ceremony, and that the only people on the beach were those in our group. She said that the sound of the waves was calming.

I didn’t go. The reason that I didn’t go was that Reilly was still sleeping. Shawn asked if I would stay with her, and I was happy to. I’ve never had a very good grasp on death. I’ve gone from being ambivalent to it to fearing it at every moment, perhaps even feeling what it is to die. I was glad to skip the ceremony.

I always liked Christine. She was a free spirit, a little weird from living alone for all her adult life in New Orleans, but then again, who in New Orleans is normal? When Shawn and I took our cross-country road trip in 2000, we stopped in New Orleans to visit Christine. I remember that she took us to a Creole restaurant and Christine and I ordered Bloody Mary’s. They were the hottest damn Bloody Mary’s of all time, but Christine was stubborn enough to insist (through watering eyes and a sweaty brow) that they weren’t too bad and to keep on smiling and sipping.

After Christine’s ceremony, the family gathered at the local chain diner to have breakfast. Cindy—Shawn’s aunt and Christine’s sister—brought out pictures of Christine from her last days. My eyes welled with tears to see her. It seemed as if the color was off in the developing—Christine was ashen and yellow from her liver failure—but true to form, was still smiling, holding up a Christmas stocking with her name on it.

The weekend was spent with family, so it contained the usual irritations of too many opinions and clashing personalities. But more so, the overarching feeling was of belonging. And it was a reminder to me that your family is really all you have; a person to change your diaper, to pick you up when you fall down, to cast your ashes into the ocean when you’re gone.

The problem of the baby

Shawn, Reilly, and I spent last weekend in Florida, warming our bones. The City has cold temperatures for six months per year (October through March), and here on the sixth and last month, Shawn and I were beginning to wear a little thin. Reilly, for her part, soldiers on through the cold, but that is only because she is too young to remember that warm July day that she was born on. That amnesia affects us adults too—after awhile in The City, one forgets that it can actually be warm, and one begins to despair that it will never be warm again.

Warming our bones was really a secondary reason for flying down home. The primary reason for our trip to Tampa was because Shawn has a conference in Orlando through the week, so to attach a long weekend so that we could see our friends and family was no problem. And see our friends and family we did. On Sunday, we had a picnic out at Millennium Park on a nice spring day—not a cloud in the sky—warm in the sun, cool in the shade.

It was fascinating to look at all of our friends at the picnic with their kids in tow and to fully realize that our demographic as a group has begun to change. As my good friend Aaron said, “Wow. You don’t see people for a couple of years, and all of a sudden there are kids all over the place.” It was a strange moment, because for the first time, I really felt like a parent. I mean, I know that Reilly is my daughter, and I am her dad, but standing out there on the grass, I saw that I now belonged to a new subset within the larger group.

On Monday, Shawn, Donna, Reilly and I packed up the Lincoln and drove off toward the airport. We fought a little traffic over the Howard Franklin Bridge, but arrived at TIA with plenty of time to drop me off. Yes, just me. The problem that Shawn and I encountered with this trip was with who would take Reilly. Would I take her, or would Shawn? Since Shawn is still breastfeeding, it made sense that she would take our baby girl, but then who would watch the baby when Shawn was in her conference meetings? The solution came in the form of Grandma Donna, who offered to nanny Reilly during the meetings. (I did explain to her that she was technically not a “nanny” in that nannies receive money in exchange for their services.)

Reader, I know you’re wondering if I miss them, and the simple answer is that I do. True, it is freeing to be alone, to worry only about myself, and to have complete control of my movements through my day. However, these small things pale in comparison to the absence that surrounds me. I miss my wife, my one true comfort in life. I miss Reilly’s smiling face (always smiling!). I miss the sounds of my little baby growing up, growling in her den. The house is quiet, and yes, I am lonely.