The main purpose behind keeping this journal is to be able
to share it with the kids. Someday, hopefully, they will want to read about
their exploits as children, see photos of their global adventures, and find
interest in the musings of their mother and father. I was fascinated by my dad’s
collection of vinyl. In many ways, to me, by listening to his records, I could
be transported back to a time of knowing him before I was born as though I were
reading through his journal, going back and reading stories he may have
forgotten, was unwilling to tell, or didn’t think were significant enough to
share. I don’t get a lot from him about the time me and my brothers were the
age the kids are now. I’m interested in what was going through his head—my mom’s,
too—knowing the era had brought a lot of change. Our kids may not understand
the reason we—as parents—do the things we do, make the decisions we make, act
the way we do, but, again, hopefully, someday, they might, and also by reading
this remember stories of their youth that they had forgotten.
So, I write this for future Sam now, so that he knows why I
was so hard on him, why I had such high expectations of him, because I knew how
much responsibility he could bear and how kind and thoughtful he had the
capacity to be while at the same time pummeling the crap out of his little
brother and sister.
We spent the night before we flew from Florida to Spokane at
my mom’s house. When we made the original plan, I didn’t fully appreciate that
she wasn’t feeling well. We were flying out at the butt-crack of dawn the next
morning, but she insisted we stay there anyway, even though I knew she would
not be able to drive us to the airport. Elise and Clementine slept in the guest
room. Peter slept on an inflatable mattress on the floor of my mom’s bedroom. I
slept on the couch. Sam slept with Nanny.
The alarm on my phone quietly warbled at 4:30, but—truth be
told—I had probably been awake for much longer before that ungodly hour. I got
in the shower before rousing the others. Then, got the kids dressed and a quick
bowl of Cheerios in their stomachs before he finished packing the car and
heading for the airport. The kids are expert travelers at this point, and their
torsos and limbs follow a well-worn muscle memory of early rises, marches to
the car, and early-morning drives to the airport, orange blurring out the
window as we zoom to the airport. We tried to be as quiet as we could so as not
to wake my mom, but—honestly—how quiet can three kids clomping off to the
airport and me dragging incredibly heavy suitcases possibly be? I was surprised
that my mom never got up to say goodbye. I figured she must have slept through
it after all.
Come to find out she was up, but had been too touched by something
Sam had done that morning to face us.
In her words, “Without a word, before I reached for my
glasses, he handed them to me. He likes to help and like you said almost
without thinking sees when and how he can.”
I can see him now and imagine him lying in bed with Nanny,
sees her reaching for her glasses and—much as he did on the Washington Mall
last weekend—recognizes a need to help and, so quickly as to be nothing other
than instinct, jumps and answers the call. Like a super-hero.
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