A whole new kind of love...

     There is nothing that compares to the love parents have for their children, but when my grandsons were born, I experienced a whole new kind of love. And I had a lot more time on my hands. I described it to friends as an explosion inside my heart that pumped a love through me I'd never felt before.

     Paul and I were blessed to spend more time with our grandsons than most grandparents get to do. Our daughter and son-in-law lived close, and we had recently purchased a beautiful home in the country. It was a perfect place to rock babies on my porch, sing songs about swinging, dig up dinosaur eggs, have living room diving Olympics. Our little boys got to fill their tummies with fruit from the garden and trees. 

     One year, Paul made shields for the boys and I painted the spirit animal of their choice on the front. They became little warriors. And we had lots of sleepovers. And lots of baths. Little boys get very dirty.

     One year, I made, "Mamo money," and began placing it in cards for my daughter and her family. Mothers day, birthdays, Easter, Christmas. The recipient could cash in these $100 bills when they wanted some time with us. Ice cream dates, play dates, sleepovers, etc. Sometimes one of the boys would need a break from their brothers, and the oldest one asked me one day how much Mamo money it would cost for a 2 night sleep over by himself. I still smile at that memory. It became fun when the boys Mom and Dad wondered how much more Mamo money they might need for an Anniversary get-a way. I made sure they always had enough. And I have about 1,000 of this valuable currency left, so each of the boys will get some to remember. And if I'm lucky enough to experience another generation of little ones, I'll make some more.

     Each of these 3 darling boys wore the same cowboy chaps and stood by the same window in different seasons. And each of them got wrapped in the same lion towel at about the same age. They walked with me dressed as Ninja's, and hiked in a line behind their Papa. And then there were the Rhino rides. Traveling on back country roads with our best little buddies in the sunshine and fresh air, mountain vistas on every side, was simply the best.  

     These three little boys who live in my heart are all young men now. They are strong mountain bike riders and Nordic skiers. Amazing, smart, charming and handsome. One does the craziest coolest yoyo tricks you've ever seen, another one has the most intelligent conversations of anyone I know, and one of them is full of charm and has started playing the guitar. And their smiles...

Man, their smiles.

    Their parents are the most self-less, generous, and best kind of amazing people, and I will forever be thankful that we got to share in their precious lives from the moment they were born and watch them grow. I love you boys so much!

     And lastly, I can't stop here and finish this without remembering the precious years with our own three children. They were the most amazing, most adorable and most darling. They are who taught me what love was all about. We didn't have smart phones back then. Our pictures were developed from rolls of film, and you never really knew what you were going to get. I often wish I could lay my Mama moments alongside these Mamo ones, but I can't. So you'll just have to trust me when I say that these three... Man oh man! They stole my heart.

 

A forever remembered, "Homemade Christmas."

     

     It's the last thing I do before going to bed and the first thing I check on when my feet hit the floor. My projects. My Christmas. It came out of a need to save money, so I'd been treasure hunting since September. I decided to make all my Christmas gifts this year, so I've been collecting things that have a past. I am going to make them new and they will become the next chapter of stories for my family.

      Today, as I began to sand through wood trying to erase scars and scratches I suddenly picture the hands and feet of Jesus. His scars changed everything, so I stop sanding. The nicks and notches in the old wood have suddenly become beautiful.

     I can't explain exactly how I feel doing this. but it's a joy I've never felt before. I  have come out of a really hard season, but I feel God's presence all over me. As I worked and planned in the quiet of my greenhouse, the space became a place for memories to surface. I began to remember the places in my life where I'd planted memorial stones. God began to remind me of the praise in the mountain tops. And He stayed right beside me as we went back together and skirted the darker valleys, and I knew it was He that got me through them. 

     God reminded me that my story was written by Him and that he wanted me to leave behind a part of Him in it, and so...  I sand and stain and glaze and paint and wait and check on...

     Weeks go by and I sit here still, in this place of remembering. A place where God's truth, power, and promise rush around and through me so fast that I spin. Mostly with joy and love...and yet...most of my Christmas still sits in piles unfinished. 

    This room...a mess. But beautiful chaos I think. In the corners lay lovely things that wait. On a table, ruined by glue and paint, sits three cut out's of little boys hands and a box. I remember the day I sat the boys down on the back porch and painted the bottoms of their feet green. They giggled. Said it tickled.  Then I stood them on a poster board, and their footprints became ornaments for our tree last year. Just a few weeks ago, we did their hands because they need to be on the tree too.  The box is for Stella Grace. I glazed it shiny then painted it with green ivy. Inside it holds a letter just to her.

     And then Fall came...

     And with God's very breath over our country mountain home, fresh inspiration came over me in the season I love the most. So I started to collect the pieces of our home that I can give away to remember. Our leaves. 

      I preserve, and paint. I make things new, and I  remember.  I now have faith for my pile of unfinished...  Because there will be birthdays....weddings...babies... graduations. 

     And so...on Christmas I will give away forever remembered moments of a season in my life. A season in my story written by God where a greatly loved daughter had a heart full of praise.

     And so...I sand, and paint, and wait, and trust because our story...God's and mine...is not finished yet.

A grafted Peach tree

      One year for our anniversary our three children bought us a precious gift. It was a grafted peach tree with three different kinds of peaches. Three different varieties, just like my children. I was so excited the first year it budded and bloomed. I loved that tree so much. 

     But we had to leave it in the ground when we left California, but before we did, I had one last precious moment with that tree. I stood in front of it and said goodbye. It was summer, and all the branches had baby peaches on them. I told the tree that it was beautiful. I told the tree I loved it.

    From the moment we put it in the ground, it became so much more than just a sapling. It was our family taking root. Our years of life there still continue through that tree, and I often wonder how big it's  become.

     I pictures it's branches laden with three kinds of fruit. Our strong-willed, first born, Mama teacher peaches, growing soft, beautiful, and bold upon her branches. I think the fruit of her peaches might have a bit of sassy tang. And her fruit is most definitely the queen of the tree. They are the ones in charge. 

     Next to them, I imagine our son's. His peaches, ever so charming and mischievous. I see them dangling upside down to tease the picker. The fruit of his peaches has a sweetness that lingers. And the juice that dribbles down your chin makes you laugh.  

     And on the last set of branches sit our fiery haired baby's peaches. And they, are one with the tree. In total communion with the roots and the trunk, shining in the sun as her fruit refracts the light differently. Her peaches are stunningly unique. They taste like nothing else. 

     And then,  I imagine the pickers. When they come to harvest this beautiful fruit, they pause. There is a tangible hesitation as they consider what they see. It's as if magic stands between their hands and the peaches they want to pick and they know it. 

     And then, pulled by the strength and sureness of the first set of beautiful fruit, they touch one and truly know what it is they are holding. 

     Then, I see them turn as the charm of the next branch entices them with a force they cant deny. They want whatever that is.  

     Finally, the sun hits the third set of peaches and the light is so bright and the fruit so pretty, they are mesmerized for a moment. 

    And so...  

     They take one of each because they know that having all three different peaches gives them the absolute best that peaches have to give to anyone. 

     A warmth spreads through me as I picture this. And I chuckle imagining what each of my children's peaches will taste like to the picker. 

     I wish I could watch this, because I know I would smile. 

Boxes of treasure...

 

     One year when our Grandsons were little, instead of giving them Easter baskets, we made them treasure boxes. I found three raw wood boxes while I was thrift store shopping one day and knew they would come in handy for something. Three boys, three boxes, right?

     Then, when Easter was on the horizon, I came up with a plan. I painted each box with a resurrection scene and found Scriptures that spoke about treasure. I painted one on the front of each boys box, and placed a couple more on index cards inside.  And then, the hunt for treasure box content began.     

     Boys love stuff. My son Michael used to stuff his pockets full of things. Rocks, feathers, marbles, money. He always wanted shorts with lots of pockets so he could fill them. I always emptied them before washing.

     So Paul found stuff. He had a box of really old coins and divided them up in baggies. He had watches that he'd bought in China. Old tie clips, bolos from the 90's and belt buckles as big as my hands. And all of these things were placed inside the boxes.  You name it, anything their Papa found in his closet and gave the boys was like gold. I still remember the squeals of delight and excited smiles when they opened them and saw what lay inside.   

     But these boxes became so much more than I can even find words for. And for me that's saying a lot. The boys loved them so much.

      After that, we barely got a hug or a hello when they arrived for playdates. It was always, "Can we have our treasure boxes, Mamo?" 

     Over the years, Paul and I would find things on trips that would fit inside them, and each time we presented them with something new, it was like we had hung the moon. Little glass vials filled with colored ocean sand, little wooden turtles, cheesy painted surfboards on a string. Wooden mountain coins from our local Jazz Jubilee. 

     And so, when the boys came over the treasure boxes came out. They'd sit on the living room floor and dump out the contents. They would talk about their stuff, sometimes trying to trade, and then rearrange everything before putting it all back in. Over time though, as the boys got older, squabbles began as all the stuff on the floor got mixed together. "That's mine!", one would say. "No it isn't. It's mine!"  "Give it back!" "Mamo! He took my..."  whatever it was that he had been accused of taking. So I would have to intervene. These boxes then became lessons in sharing and consequence when they had to be put away. Sometimes there were tears. But like stepping over stones, the boys were learning. Bumps happen along the road of brotherhood and life, and they were learning how to maneuver through them. 

     Over the last few years as I have thought about those boxes, I remember the love the boys had for all the bits and bobs inside. And when I do, my hearts swells with joy from the memories.

     Last week, when I was editing this story for the book, I thought again about the boxes, trying to picture what might still be in them. I was pretty sure we had given them back to the boys before our move across the country, but I asked Paul if he remembered. 

     "I'm pretty sure there upstairs in one of the guestroom closets." He told me. Really? I thought. How sweet.

     So a few days later, I opened the boxes and spread the contents across my bed. Flooded with memories I picked things up as sweet tears filled my eyes. One of the boys still had the baby dinosaur that came from the eggs I buried in our yard. One evening, after digging them up, we excavated three baby dinosaurs around our kitchen table. The next time the boys came over, we made nests for them from twigs and feathers we found on a walk. One of the boys boxes still had the nest inside his box. And there was money. Eight dollars in cash, and 100 dollars of Mamo money. But the sweetest thing, were the glass beads. I had no idea the boys had saved so many of them. 

     We had a creek that ran through our yard, so one day I decided to spread shiny glass beads in the creek for the boys to hunt. They went crazy filling their pockets with the shiny things. And when the sun hit them just right in the water they sparkled like crazy. 

     And so, it became a thing. Anytime we had a party or a celebration at our house, and we had quite a few, I'd fill the creek with shiny treasures and pass out little drawstring pouches for the children to collect them in. I hadn't thought about this for years, but to see so many of these little beads inside the boys boxes almost made me cry. 

     We get to see these three grown up little boys soon, and I can't wait to see their faces when the boxes of treasure get back into their hands. I expect tears to form in their eyes as memories appear. I expect deep long hugs. And I know it will end with stories and laughter. 

      Life and Love, Papa's old junk, three little boys, and three boxes of treasure. Doesn't get much better than that. 

Mother sewed

 My Memories of Mom are many. I was the oldest girl and paid close attention to everything Mom did. She read to us every day and I fell in love with stories because of it. She also loved Music and she and I would play record albums over and over for hours a day. We would sing and I would dance while Mother sewed. She sewed all of our clothes until I was in middle school. Church dresses. Summer shifts. Costumes. She made all her own clothes too. Beautiful things modeled after the style of Jackie Kennedy. Colorful bell bottom pantsuits. Tailored dresses. She even made Ron a suit. I loved going to the fabric store with her to pick out my patterns. I can still remember the excitement of sitting at the tables in the fabric stores and looking through the pattern books of McCalls, Butterick, and Simplicity.

Most of my childhood Mom was on the floor cutting out patterns, or at the sewing machine putting them together. She wore a pin cushion around her wrist, and always held pins between her lips as she pulled them out or put them in. I remembered being lulled to sleep by the sound of her sewing machine and waking up to the joy of an almost finished dress. We tried everything on before the finishing touches were applied. Buttons, rickrack, pleats. And of course the hems. We had a full length mirror in the living room which was Mom's sewing room for most of the year. I remember standing in front of it watching Mom pin my hems. I remember I always wanted them a little bit shorter. And I remember when my hair got longer, she made me matching headbands.

And I have vivid memories of Mom sitting at the table with me when I brought home papers to learn cursive. She would do the first few letters and I would them copy them to the bottom of the page. Her handwriting was beautiful. Still is. I remember once finding some letters from my Grandma Ruthie. Mom's mom. I had never until then, realized how much Grandmas handwriting looked like Moms. How much like mine. People don't really sew like Mom did anymore, at least no know I've ever known, or do they learn cursive. And no one writes letters anymore either. I think that's sad. But I can hold tight to the memories of those things being a part of my childhood and my story. They formed me. And I will always be thankful for that.

Uncle Bill and the fire.

 I loved my Uncle Bill. He was my Mom's baby brother and a very young uncle. Mom was 19 when she and Dad married, and she was pregnant with Ron at the time. Bill was in Kindergarten. This made Bill much closer to our age than Moms. Grandmother was mostly a single Mom, Grandpa John was an alcoholic, and went in and out of the house and family for many years before they divorced, so she worked at the hospital early, and often late. Mom, newly married, took Bill to school and picked him up after. She was sister, but also a surrogate Mother to him.

Every December and sometimes more often, we would go visit Grandma and Bill in Enid, Oklahoma. As Ron and I got older, we thought Bill was the coolest thing ever, well I did anyway, but Ron wanted Bill all to himself. When Bill became a teenager, Ron would disappear into Bills room with him for what seemed like hours listening to music and talking. I was so jealous while I sat with Grandma and learned to needlepoint. I love the memory I have now of that with Grandma Ruth, but in the moment all I wanted was to be in Bills room with the talk and the music.

A year or so later, during a Summer visit, Bill and Ron disappeared like always, but then shortly, came back out to the living room. Bill had just gotten his drivers license and he asked Mom if he could take Ron on a drive. A drive with Uncle Bill! My heart raced. "Can I go too Bill? Please?"

Ron wasn't having any of it. "No!" He said quickly. Bill asked me.

"Please can I go too, Bill? Please?" I was begging him.

"No!" Ron said again, But Bill had a soft spot for me in his heart and I knew it.

"It's okay Ron," Bill said, "Pam can come too."

Ron was really mad. You could see it on his face as he stomped off back to Bills room. Bill followed him. A few minutes later they both came back out and Grandma gave Bill some money to get us a treat and we left.

Ron was still stewing when he climbed in the front seat next to Bill. Then he turned to look at me. "You ruined everything." he said snarling.

I didn't understand, but I didn't really care either. I was just glad to be with them. Bill pulled into the gas station and the three of us went in for ice cream. As we were leaving, Bill stopped Ron and when I got to the car I saw them talking by the entrance door. I couldn't hear them, but I could tell it was a serious conversation.

A few minutes later, the boys climbed back into the front seat. Bill then turned around to speak to me. " Pam, do you think you could keep a secret if I asked you too?"

"Yes." I said, "I can keep a secret."

"You sure?" Ron was staring at me now too. "You can't tell Aunt Mary, Uncle Elmer or Mom?

"You mean Grandma?"

"Yes." Bill said, "You understand?"

I shook my head yes, but I felt nervous. What was this secret?

"I have some left over fireworks from 4th of July. Ron and I are going to shoot some off in a field, but you can't tell anyone. We aren't' supposed to fire them after the July 4th."

Fireworks? Okay. I loved Pop Bottle Rockets. "Oh cool," I said, feeling relieved. "I love fireworks."

So off to the field we went.

The sack that Bill took from the trunk when we arrived however, did not have any Pop Bottle Rockets. The fireworks he pulled out were the kind that hung high on the wall at the back of the open trailers during pre 4th shopping. They were not for kids. Dad would never buy any of those. You had to use a flame to ignite them, and Bill used an old Bucket to set them on. I watched Bill light the first one. It shot high into the sky and whistling and popped with an explosion. Oh Wow, I thought.

"You can do the next one Ron," Bill said handing him the lighter. "Stay as far from it as you can when you light it," he told him, "then move away."

I could tell Ron was excited but also a little bit scared. These fireworks were nothing to mess around with. The second one whistled and popped just like the first one. Ron now had a story to tell his friends at school.

Bill lit the next one. This time, sparks started spraying from it right after it was lit, and it went up, but not very far, and then fell back to the ground on fire. Bill ran toward it, hoping to stomp the fire out, but it was spreading fast in the hot dry field grass.

Bill came back running. Get in the car, he yelled, we have to call the fire department. This was around 1967 and Bill drove straight to a phone booth. He was sweating bad when he came back to the car.

"They're coming. " he said, "But when they asked me for my name I hung up. Oh God." Bill started the car. "Look," he said and pointed. "That's a lot of smoke." We parked on a side street and waited. Not long after we heard the sirens of a fire truck.

I started to cry. "Stop crying!" Ron said, "Mom will know that something is wrong."

"I'm sorry, Pam." Bill said, "It'll be okay. "The firemen will put it out. I didn't think anything would happen."

I tried hard to pull it together.

Bill was still pretty rattled. "Do you think anyone saw us?" He asked.

"I don't know," Ron replied. "I don't think so."

How the three of us arrived back at the house looking like everything was fine I'll never know. But neither Mom nor Grandma suspected anything as we settled back into the normalcy of Grandma's house.

I did eventually tell my Mom what happened that day, but it was many years later. I had told my Uncle Bill that I could keep a promise and I know he trusted me. It was a bigger promise than the one it started out to be, but all was well in the end. I never did tell Grandma.

Gales family Christmas

 Every December of my childhood, right before Christmas, Mom and Dad would pack us all into the car and we'd head to Enid Oklahoma for Christmas with our Grandparents. Both sets of them lived there, but it was Dad's side of the family, the Gales side, that brought the party. He had four sisters and between them all their were 14 grandkids. My Uncle Gary was the oldest. He was in College and his sister Janice was in high school when my siblings and I, (and all the other cousins,) rolled into town like a rough and tumble gangly group of wiggles and giggles. We were wild things. We lived in Oklahoma City, and the drive to Enid was about 90 minutes. We knew we were almost there when Dad turned his head and pointed, "There she is kids. The Enid "LolloBrigida." Why he named it after Gina, a sexy siren of the times I'll never know, but he always smiled when he said it, and we would laugh.

When I think back now, I have no idea how 24 of us fit inside their house. Every car load of family arrived with card table or 2 and chairs in their trunks. They were carried in alongside all the kiddos and strategically placed in every nook and cranny in Grandma and Grandpa's small house. I remember the joke about sitting down to eat. Once you were tucked up in there with a plate of food you better plan on staying put for awhile because it was quite an ordeal to get somebody out from behind table number three in the back without everyone else in the room having to stand and pick up chairs and move about in the hallway by the bathroom.

And then, after everyone ate and the dishes were cleaned, the cards came out. And the Gales family siblings, they were serious about their cards. The kids weren't allowed to play until they reached a certain age and knew how to play, so the crazy cousin crew would run around the neighborhood and in and out of the house, slamming the front and back screen doors. Inside the house, there was always much laughter, and we could tell by the hoots and hollers, who the winners were. I liked to go inside and to sneak a look at the score cards regularly though just to see how close the scores were.

And then, just before dark, everybody would pack their card tables and chairs back into the trunks and the goodbyes would begin. This is when Grandma Gales would bring out her pre packaged paper sacks. One for each family. Inside were baggies of her homemade cookies, beautiful embroidery tea towels for the kitchen, huge containers of pecans from their tree, and then, my Dad's favorite gift, Grandma's homemade noodles. They were my favorite too. I used to watch all the ladies in the kitchen working on them. I'd stand on a chair in the doorway and peek into the tiny kitchen. Grandma, surrounded by my Aunts, would roll out the dough, and then cut it into the long strips of mouth watering goodness. I have never had noodles as delicious as the ones Grandma Gales made. As a child it was normal and she made it look easy, but I now I know how much time and work she put into the grocery bags of love.

I wish so much that I could now hold one of the embroidered Tea towels that Grandma made for me. But when I was a young, newly married girl cleaning out drawers, I remembered finding them. I thought, "These are kinda silly," I never use them, and I donated them with a pile of other stuff.

Oh to have that moment back!

A childhood

 I have lots of memories of life with my siblings. There were four of us, so we always had a lot going on. Ron and I are the oldest. We are Irish twins. This means that we were both born inside the same Calendar year. I was born on Dec.4th, 1957, and He turned 1 on Dec. 23rd just a few weeks after I was born. That being said, the 2 of us were close growing up. We were our own tribe. Our sisters, Lori and Kay, were 3 and 5 years younger than us so they usually played together . We grew up before technology was a thing. Our bright colored phones hung on the walls or sat on tables. They had rotary dials and a hand set. You spoke in one end and listened in the other. The cords were curly and long and stretched across rooms. I remember watching Mom walk around the Kitchen with the hand set tucked between her head and shoulder having conversations while she cooked. I know I'm getting off track with my memories, but I wanted to set the scene of our childhood. Our first TV was black and white and had about 3 channels. A big V shaped antenna, a thing called, Rabbit Ears, sat on top of it and when the picture went fuzzy, or began to roll, the Rabbit Ears would get adjusted back and forth hoping to get the picture back. Anyway...

Our afternoons and evenings were spent outside until it got so cold that we complained, then Dad put a heater in the garage so that we could play in there. After dinner Dad always played with us. We'd shoot baskets in our driveway and play around the world. We'd ride bikes, roller-skate, play Badminton, baseball, Croquet, and putt putt golf. Dad bought a ping pong table which he put in the garage when the weather moved us inside, and taught us all to play. As we grew, the competitions became fierce and fun and then one day Dad came home with a bumper pool table in the back of our station wagon and he taught us all to play that.

Summers were long for my Mom with all of us under foot every day, so Dad always spent the evenings outside with us to give Mom a break. She had piles of Magazines and loved the quiet time to sit and read them. We were usually outside after dinner until dark. During the Summer days, Ron and I would often hunt for box turtles, and Horny toads in a field by our house. We'd both run off with boxes in hand after telling Mom what we were doing and we'd always come back with something. One Summer we collected 4 box turtles and had turtle races. We used Mom's nail polish and painted our initials on the turtles backs, then we'd line them up in the grass and call them to us. Lori and Kay's turtles never won because Ron and I practiced beforehand and picked the speediest guys. Ron almost always won the races.

But I on the other hand, I...was the toad catcher. The best one on the block. We all loved to have toad races too, but it's hard to catch a toad, they jump high and they're fast, and because the first thing they do when captured is pee, it was not for everyone. But I found a way to quietly sneak up on the croakers and I figured out a way to catch them without getting peed on. I'd pinch them on the back right between their front legs, and then hold them out and away while they peed. Our Oklahoma toads were abundant and loud, and on many of these Summer nights a kid down the block would come running to find me. "Pam, come quick, we've cornered a toad!"

We also had locusts. One summer the swarm was exceptionally large. Everyone was complaining about the noise all Summer. But at the end of the season they molt and leave a hard shell eco-skeleton behind. Ron and I found these shells stuck on the trunks of trees, and after we realized that they fit perfectly on the tips of our fingers, we of course decided to scare our sisters with them. We chased them around the yard as they screamed. We were relentless until Dad made us stop. We collected a bunch of them that summer. I couldn't stop inspecting them. I thought they were amazing.

We also caught fireflies in the Miracle Whip jars that we collected all year for just that purpose. They were lined up on a garage shelf, and when the fireflies came out, Dad would poke holes in the lids and we'd catch as many as we could. We put sticks and green leaves twigs in the jars for them to sit on, and they became our bedside night lights. I loved them so much.

Once, I caught one in my hand, and pulled its light from it's body. The light stayed on and it was sticky, so I put it on my finger like a diamond. I felt sad afterward, knowing that I probably killed, but the glowing light on my wedding finger fascinated me all the same.

And then there were the inside games. Cards, Dominoes, Monopoly, Clue, Dad always played with us. Mom usually sat close by enjoying watching us while she flipped through her magazines.

All being said and done, we played together a lot as a family and I am blessed by a happy childhood. But the world was a different place when I was growing up, and I often grieve for the loss of that simpler childhood. The parents and kids today have a whole new set of problems, temptations and issues that the world of my childhood did not. I pray for my daughter and son in law who are still in the thick of raising boys in this new world. They are, however, exceptional parents and I'm truly proud of how they are navigating these rough waters.

My Grandsons have heard me tell many of my childhood stories, and will know more as they read the pages in this book they gave to write. I think they will understand me better afterward and know why I am the way I am. I know too, that they will share my stories with their children and I believe my stories will even reach the generation of my family after that.

Such is the power of story, the gift of remembering, and the love of life and family.

The first time I saw my Father cry

 It was late on a Sat. afternoon, about 1966 or so, and we'd all been outside playing for hours when Mom came outside to find Dad. I told her I thought that he was in the backyard. Apparently he had a phone call.

Shortly afterward, Dad came out through the front door with Mom. I think I was roller skating but I remember seeing them talking on the porch. Then Dad took off walking down the street. "Where are you going, Dad?" I asked him. He waved me off. Said he'd be back in a few minutes.

I watched Dad knock on a door a few houses down and then go inside. I had seen the family but I didn't really know them. I don't think they had lived there very long. I had met the Father in our yard a few times when he and Dad were talking. He was a tall strong retired Navy man. I knew they had a little boy, but he was too young to hang out with Ron and me. I don't remember Ron being around that day when Dad walked to their house, maybe he'd been at baseball or football or something. I don't remember.

It was awhile before I saw Dad walking back toward the house and I knew something was wrong. I stopped and watched him as he approached me. "What's wrong Dad?" I asked him.

"There was a terrible accident this morning," he told me. "Don Beyers drowned."

Don Beyers was my friend Teresa's father. They lived just a few houses down on the other side of the street. "How?" I asked. "What happened?"

Dad and I sat down and he told me the story. The Navy Dad, I think his name was Jimmy, had taken Don Beyers and his son fishing that morning. I don't remember what kind of a boat he had, but while they were on the lake, the boat capsized, and the men were not wearing life jackets. They were a long way from shore. Close to a mile I think. Jimmy grabbed his son and saw Don panicking in the water, so he went to him and tried to get him to relax. Don said that he wasn't a good swimmer. Jimmy knew he couldn't get the boat flipped back over by himself, so the only choice was to swim to shore. I don't remember if Jimmy's son was wearing a life jacket, but he started for shore with them both. It was too much for Jimmy. The shore was too far, so he left Don by the capsized boat. Told him to hang on and he'd be back. When Jimmy got back to the boat, Don had let go. He didn't see him anywhere.

Dad's eyes filled with tears as he recounted to me how Jimmy dove and dove looking for Don's body. Already exhausted from swimming to shore and back, Jimmy knew his son was waiting for him on the shore scared and alone. He had no choice but too swim back to shore while he still could.

I think I was crying now too.

Dad told me that his Navy training is what saved Jimmy and his son. He was an incredible swimmer. Most people would have never made it back to shore.

Dad said that Jimmy sobbed while he told him what happened. Overwhelmed with grief by Don's death. Dad's tears spilled from his eyes.

I suddenly thought about Teresa and Wanda Beyers as a whole new wave of grief swept over my little girl spirit. Teresa's Dad was dead. I looked down the street where she lived. Her driveway and the street in front were full of cars. There were people in the yard.

Mom told me later that we needed to go see them. In a day or two. We'd go to their house and tell them how sorry we were.

My stomach hurt so bad that night. For days, really.

When we went to the Byers house, Mom carried a casserole, I carried dessert. Then Mom sat on the couch holding Wanda's hands in hers. They both had quiet tears.

Teresa and I went to her room and we sat on the floor with a pile of Barbie dolls. We dressed them, undressed them, the dressed them again. We didn't really talk.

I said goodbye to Teresa when Mom came to her bedroom door. I don't think I ever saw her after that. They moved away soon after. Mom said they needed to be closer to family. That helped me more than anything else. I didn't have to think about them if they weren't there and my stomachache went away. And they were with their family. And I knew that was good.

And my Dad...I knew that day that my Dad cried. And I had cried with him.