On Nostalgia

There it comes again, that low throb, an ache in the heart.  It's like dust that's lifted by a draft.  It pinches the sinuses, and waters the eyes.

Sure she was cute, but Lily was villainous and constantly plotting my demise.

Me, my brothers, and baby sister in 1984.

My love of reading started early.  

Sometimes I feel like I've lived one thousand lifetimes.

Me and my dear Grandma Luster on Easter 1985.  She was always trending, always so fashionable.  
I didn't inherit any of that from her, but I did get her knack for whipping up some good grub.

Me and Dad, 1980

My family driving cattle through the Yakima Indian Reservation in spring in the late 80s.  
That's my dad with the X shaped suspenders on his back.  

Growing up a cowgirl's destiny started early.

Me on Louie.   I wasn't yet two.

I always felt my dad was so handsome, a real football hero.  My mom was always so pretty with her sparkly blue eyes and cornsilk blond hair.  Dear Aunt Jodie never ages.

There's nothing quite like amputating relationships, especially those of your own family.  There's sadness that can't really be expressed or explained to those who only have experienced
natural physical death as an end.

Although the rot was deep, and the cut had to happen, it not only left us bereft, guilty, grief-stricken and bewildered, but it changed us entirely.

It was a horrible metamorphosis.  Hardly as poetic as  the butterfly erupting triumphantly from the chrysalis, but more terrifying, something nightmarish, like the violent formation of mountains
shaped by spewing lava and earthquakes.

I was closest with my second brother Jacob growing up.
It's been over three years since we've spoken.  I miss him.

Washing Wilber the Runt in the kitchen at our farmhouse 1986.

In one of my favorite poems, "Harlem," Langston Hughes wonders what happens to the dream deferred.  I wonder what happens to the lives we didn't live?  The good ones, and the bad ones?

Do we put them away in tiny coffins, and lift up quiet eulogies?

I've tried this.  It's hard to bury them because like zombies they die hard, they go to their graves unwillingly.  Visions of "what might have" been are haunting.

There was a lot of family around all the time, although many were surrogate.  My grandparents were really my mom's foster parents, and my cousins were so only by marriage.  But I like to think that the love we shared was real,
and bone deep.

On most days, the nostalgia is quiet.  On others it's obnoxious and painful.  Birthdays, holidays, especially Christmas, or Mother's Day, rip off that thin scab all over again.

No one tells you that healing leaves ugly, itchy scars.

Me and Wade at Mt St Helens.  He's a handsome man now with his own little boy.  I see Wade once or twice a year.

Me and Lexi on the first day of school.  I was in 8th grade, she was in 2nd.
She's always been a beautiful girl with mom's apple pie complexion.  I pray she's happy whatever she's doing.

I was in 5th grade.  Easter 1987 or 88.  After the divorce mom cut down the peach tree and ripped up the pine to install a pool.
 I always missed the trees.

At our annual Huckleberry Camp.  

Hiking in the Sawtooth Berry Fields in St. Adams.  Domino was our beautiful border collie, and protected us four kids with fierce loyalty.  She was definitely smarter than a 5th grader, a hard working girl driving, herding, and guarding our home.  She also played a mean game of tag with us four.  She deserves her own story.

Me and dear old Louie in the 4th of July parade in Toppenish, 1987.   He has his own story.

Mom and her chicks on Easter.
I miss my mom.  I would have liked her presence in my boys lives.  And in mine.

At sixteen I was selected from 60 international exchange students by the Saitama-ken Rotary Club to deliver a 20 minute speech (in Japanese) to over 1000 delegates at the annual meeting held in Tokyo.   My Belgian buddy, Ben, was also elected as the "boy representative."   My year in Toda-shi motivated me to become an English teacher, using my love of literature and language to live abroad.  It never transpired, of course. 

And yet there is the reality that dwelling inside every schism exists the birth of something new, something different.  According to my faith, I believe that this new creation is much better than what I was dreaming up in my feeble mind.  Something awesome.  Something God-sized.

September 10, 1999.  Kids in love.

The sadness is normal and good.  It means there's letting go, and grief is correct and healthy.  It's right to hold up all those dreams and possible destinies and realize that although it hasn't gone at all like I thought it would, or even what I had planned, the sacrifices were well worth it.

July 6, 2006
Loving precious little Andres.  The necklace was a laced with prayer charms from loved ones.

May 15, 2010.
Reveling the miracle of dear little Raphael.

 It's not easy, and not predictable, and it's far from perfect.
It didn't go as planned.  Many of my dreams are deferred, dieing, or dead.
But in so many countless ways this life is better beyond words than what I could have imagined.
And that gives me hope.


"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.  
Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11