Aloha

My nephew Charlie is one of the finest young men you will ever meet, a kind man, a noble man, a man of honor, a man of integrity ... and a man with an incredibly warped sense of humor. He once took a picture of his arm, made it look just like a person's butt cheeks and set it as the wallpaper on my phone, and it took me a month to figure out how to erase it. When he graduated from college, Charlie and his wife, Allison, moved to Hawaii for a few years ... what a place to be stationed for military duty, huh? I didn't get to talk to Charlie very often while he lived on the island ... that was before the days of unlimited cell phone minutes ... but when I did call him, he would answer the phone with a lilting "Aloha," the Hawaiian word for hello. And when we finished talking, Charlie would close our conversation with, "Love you ... aloha." You see, in Hawaiian, aloha means both hello and goodbye ... which I think is completely weird. I mean, come on ... it seems to me that I would always be wondering whether I was coming or going.

Yesterday afternoon, several people dropped by my house to say hello to little C.J. ... and to say goodbye to Matt and Becca, and wish them well in their move to Canada. Meghann and my son-in-law Barrett, and Brad and his girlfriend Shelby were here, and it was good to have them all home for the day; in fact, it's been a long time since we were all together here at my house ... and I was very aware as I watched my kiddos yesterday that it will be a long time before it happens again. I had gone to bed completely exhausted Saturday night, with every single muscle in my body aching after working in the yard and cleaning house all day. As I watched my children talking and laughing and hugging all the people who came and went throughout the afternoon, I knew that all my hard work was worth it ... it was so, so worth it to see their smiles and hear their voices as they recalled memory after memory with those who have been such big parts of their lives down through the years.

It was a bittersweet time for me ... knowing that every person who walked through my front door yesterday was coming to say hello to C.J., but also to say goodbye to Matt and Becca. Those of you who have been reading along with me know that tears seem to never be far away from the surface for me now, and I had ducked into the bathroom several times yesterday to throw cold water on my face in an attempt to keep myself from crying. It ended up not working, of course, and before the afternoon was over, I was a weepy mess. But ... but ... but ... Matt and Becca were having such a good time ... smiling, laughing, hugging ... they are so excited about the adventure they are getting ready to embark upon. And C.J. ... C.J. is perfect ... she laughed out loud at her old Granny, probably because she knows just how crazy I really am.

Our day ended with the plans we had to go to dinner to celebrate Meghann's birthday being changed ... most of us spent the evening in my basement with the tornado sirens sounding and the weather reports saying that a tornado had touched down not far from my house. I say most of us because Meghann and Barrett had gone on to the restaurant in spite of the sirens, and they had a great steak dinner without us. They will tease us for as long as we live about being weenies and hunkering down in the basement ... with my Julie and Ollie, three additional wiener dogs, and my neighbors and their cat. And yes, for those of you who are wondering, I was in total panic, freak-out mode, and my children had a front row seat to witness my irrational storm behavior. I cried buckets after all the kids left, and I made each of them promise to call me when they got to their respective homes. I finally drifted off to sleep, albeit a fitful one, around midnight, in spite of the still rumbling thunder that growled in the sky and the flashing lightning that filled my bedroom with light. And my last thought as my eyes began to droop ... the final picture in my tired and weary mind was of Matt ... holding his precious daughter as he beamed with pride and joy, laughing and smiling as he saw old friends, shooting looks of adoration to his equally adoring wife, savoring his time and making the most of each moment.

So thank you  ... thank you to all of you who came to say hello and goodbye, for the support and encouragement you've given to my family over the years, for loving us in the good times and the bad ... thank you for being our friends and for allowing our family to be part of yours.