love – my ft.notes

Thursday Thanks. Helping #22.

I haven’t snuggled up in my Thanksgiving Chair in way too long. A new year is a good time to be grateful out loud, right?

Today, I’m thankful for words of wisdom from my Dad. He is full of choice nuggets. Things like: Excuses are like butt holes. Everyone has one and they all stink. (His version is a teense more colorful than mine). Or: I only expect your best. But I know what your best is. (Can’t tell you how fun it’s been to share that gem with my own children). My favorite, though, has always been: words are powerful.

Words have been my livelihood, my love and my lifeline, so this one sticks to my ribs like a proper biscuit. Words are powerful. Words can wound you or save you. They are bridges and fences. A wee word spark can roast an entire forest. They are expressions of the core of our hearts. Words are powerful. So, when I saw a sweet friend review 2017 by her word of the year, I wanted to jump on the trendy train and embrace one word to live by for all of 2018. But, of the gazillion gorgeous words in the universe, which one would I choose to measure a year?

HOPEFUL. My word this year is hopeful.

I’m hopeful that, this year, the boys will choose Legos over screens, outside over Legos and time with us over everything else. I’m hopeful Tucker will keep group-texting Jeff and me when he gets good news, uncovers something new or has a silly thought. I’m hopeful Case will keep hugging me with all the squeeze he’s got.

I’m hopeful that 15 pounds of wrinkles and a foot of tongue will keep bringing us together in ways I haven’t imagined yet.

I’m hopeful that the Volunteers have a good season. God is still in the miracle business. I’m hopeful this year is filled with Disney Digressions: meet ups, dress-ups and Dole Whips.

Disney Digression

I’m hopeful that this year means more corn hole victories, JENGA towers and firepit chats. I’m hopeful for less late nights and more date nights. A girl can dream. I’m hopeful that this work we do, this advertising stuff, will move business, sure. And, hopefully, move a few moods, minds and hearts along the way.

I’m hopeful that last year’s razor-edged grief, with its macho pushy points, will be worn down to a meeker, smoother, manageable mass. I’m hopeful that I’ll stop counting holidays as the first-without or the last-with and, instead, revel in the hope that, on the other side of earth’s horizon, there’s a celebration that will never end.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be more cautious with my words, more careful with my decisions and more reckless with my love.

I’m hopeful for this year that brings new family, new adventures and, God willing, new life.

I have this hope.

Shift Into First

It first happened in our upstairs hall last summer while I sorted school supplies into two piles. One for the big one and one for the little one.

I had given Tucker, capable, soon-to-be fifth grader, a Sharpie to label all of his notebooks and folders. But I wrote Case Adams in the other folders myself, in perfect Momma script. I was four deep before he stopped me.

Can I write my name?

Of course you can, I said, even though I really, really wanted to finish. Why? Labeling your child’s things is so parental. It means you’re in control. It means they need you.

I’ve never written with a Sharpie before, he said, giddy and sliding onto his belly to form each letter in permanent black.

He was ready and I missed it.

I missed it because I was all consumed in Tucker’s lasts. His last year of elementary school. Their last year together for years. The last bit of little. I’d been devouring blogs, wallowing in other mothers’ weepiness. Stories about moms who couldn’t remember the last time they’d washed their kid’s hair for them. And, alarmed, I realized that I couldn’t either.

Lost in the middle of the rewind, I was fast-forwarding through the now.

I used to be aware of their heaviness when I carried them upstairs to bed. I don’t carry them anymore. I don’t help them get dressed.

I do still help with the hair. Y’all. I have to.

And, though it’s been country miles from perfect, I’m aware of a shift to first.

Shifting to first. Just as there’s only one last, there’s only one first. They’re easier to miss because you don’t see them coming. Instead of mourning what you had, it’s a shift into relishing what you have. We have fragile, incomparable life springing up, always. And it’s so sweet to catch.

Like the first time a gnarly man stink smacks you in the face; it’s coming from your boy and that sweet swing-set sweat is long gone.

The first time he asks for Axe instead of that unscented organic stuff you bought for him. Wait. What?

A pimply nose pops up in place of a stuffy one.

Baseball cups replace sippie cups. There one sits, on your kitchen counter! The horror! The ew! And you want to scold, because this is certainly not the place to leave it, but you stop, awestruck. No way this type of cup is really necessary?!

Then there’s the first time they defy a life-long fear and ride a thrill, seemingly on whim. And you wonder: how long have they been tinkering with that in their brain?

Screen Shot 2013-09-24 at 7.36.52 AM — Disney Digression: Case is tackling the Magic Kingdom mountains, one at a time. This one’s next.

The first time they peck at keys, typing a report. And the project is their vision, not yours.

keyboard Case

The first time they realize I don’t know everything. The first time they challenge me with their eyes, then their anger, then their words.

The first time they come to your rescue. You mess up, they cup your cheek with their growing hand and they tell you it’s okay.

The first time the little one prays for his big brother, out loud, through a toothless lisp, “on our journey to goodness.”

The first time you hear them chatting after midnight, serious conversations about God, girls and Clash Royale between bunks, and you realize that, though they’re made to share a room, they’re choosing to be friends.

Choosing.

A few weeks ago, we drove up to South Carolina to see Jeff’s dad, host to a legion of cancer. Though I never dared let my worry speak out loud, it was a farewell trip.

I know the exact minute it hit me that this could be the last time we’d see him. The truth flickered across my murky brain and seized my gut.

And the moment felt empty. Inadequate. There we sat, in quiet panic, blinking, dumb, circled up in the living room. We didn’t know what to say.

In the middle of that too-still last was the first time I saw my child’s full heart. Tucker climbed up on the couch next to his Gamps and laced his 10-year-old fingers between the cool 67-year-old hand.

In the Venn diagram of fear and the unknown, our boy laced them together with hope.

Days before he died, he gave our sons, his grandsons, a copy of THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. He wrote this note, in a permanent black:

“I hope you enjoy this book. It is about a couple of boys that made the best of life, living their dream. Enjoy it. Love, Gamps.”

This from a soul who was a conductor of adventure, vitality and faith, a living example of being ever-present: in his last message, he was encouraging them to shift into first.

The smell of love

Do you have a favorite lotion?

Mine comes from the Hotel on Rivington. It’s fun-sized in its squat little sample container, clear, so you can see the baby-pink goodness inside. It’s the perfect weight for lotion lovers, velvety thick, and my skin drinks it quick like.

But the best part is its fragrance. It’s not too flowery, musky or sweet. It’s made from Indian fig extract. I’ve never met an Indian fig, but I love the way it smells—a full, exotic, jammy bloom.

The lotion is called LOVE. And I kind of love that. Because it does smell like what love can feel like. You know when it’s fresh and new and wakes you up to life? But the scent and softness linger, too, like a familiar comfort.

And it made me think. What does love smell like?

It smells like my mom’s from-scratch sketti sauce—the legit business that starts with minced onion and buttery garlic cloves, sautéing in gold oil. Ingredients are stirred in as it simmers on. And, like most things, the hours improve it.

Love’s smell is Vanilla Oatmeal suds in fine, blonde hair. The boys’ shampoo is one of my favorite smells. But when they’re in my lap, we’re reading a book and their brains are whirring, I swear that thoughts heat their heads and intensify that scent.

Or, in the early morning, when I sneak in to wake them up. Their warm heads, sweet-sweaty with sleep, smell like everything I feel.

It’s also my sissy’s car—years later, it’s still some parts new-car smell, some parts lawyerly, orderly and fun. It’s a best-buds road trip, a miles-of-music box.

It’s the musty (and is it chlorine?) smell of the Tampa airport after a late-night flight. I know. Ew. It’s not a great smell, but it’s distinct. It means I’m home.

Of course, it’s the warm whoosh of just-baked waffle cones that wafts onto Main Street USA from the Ice Cream Parlour. There have been reports of trickery—that they use smell-a-vents, pushing out a puff of heaven to lure you in. But I have intel that promises those valves have been closed for years. ‘Cause the real deal can call you to the mothership all on its own.

But love, my love, smells like the pillow on Jeff’s side of the bed. It’s not his cologne or deodorant. He’s been through a lot of flavors in the last 13 years. It’s the smell of his person, his skin. I inhale a chemical reaction. The smell of him calms my core.

What do you think? Am I wacko or does love have a smell?