life. faithful.

Okay, so this is the third time I've started a post for today. There are so many thoughts and emotions flying around in my head, but I can't seem to get them to hold still long enough to name them, let alone to get them nailed down on paper. On one hand, I'm as excited as everyone else about the "unofficial" start to summer. I'm looking forward to an extra long weekend, sunshine, family, and grilling out. We've got ribs ready for the smoker and all the goodies to go with them. We spent Saturday and Sunday with family and are doing the same thing today. On the other hand, I'm having a really hard time with Memorial Day this year. It's been 17 years without Michael, so logically things shouldn't be so hard. 17 years is a long time--I should be used to it by now. This year, though, I've just been a bit off all week. I always miss my brother. Most of the time it's not a dramatic thing, just little things that I wish I could talk to him abou...

In honor of Memorial Day, I want to share a handful of memories with you...I apologize in advance for how disjointed this post may be, but that's simply because my mind is a bit disjointed right now. *** There's the time I sat on the pipe fence while my brother tried to saddle Red Cloud for a ride. His role as a Cavalry officer had put him in a big Stetson hat, which made him a cowboy...saddling a horse wouldn't be a problem. I laughed while he got mad at a horse who didn't seem fond of the huge guy who wanted to go for a ride. My offers of help were brushed off with comments along the lines of, "I don't need your help to saddle a horse." So I simply watched and laughed and tried not to rub it in too much when Michael finally said, "Get down here and hold your stupid horse." *** Or the time when I got a handmade card for Valentine's Day that said, "Though at times I may pick on you (just a little)...you should know I still love yo...

Tuesday, my brother would have turned 36. I would have teased him tremendously, poking fun at the fact that he was inching closer and closer to 40 while I was still closer to 30. I would have complained about having to have that gooey red cherry stuff on top of the cheesecake again --but I would have grinned while I ate it. Instead, I was a little too quick with an answer when the kids at school asked for the date. "The 6th" is what I said, but in my head the answer went on with my big brother's birthday. I didn't say it, though. Sometimes I hesitate to say anything about him because I'm not sure how other people will react, but I can usually count on a look of pity, an "I'm sorry," followed by an uncomfortable silence while I smile to show that they don't have to be sad. His birthday is hard. It makes me wonder what he would be like at 36...maybe a couple gray hairs for me to make fun of? A few extra pounds around the waist? Smile...

So, I did something hard yesterday--I visited the Pea Ridge Battlefield. from encyclopediaofarkansas.net That may not sound hard to you, but for me it made my heart ache. Not just for the soldiers who fought and died on those grounds, though that in itself was enough to make my heart hurt. No, it was hard for a whole other reason. You see, my brother was a Civil War scholar. He studied the Civil War--reading books, taking part in reenactments, watching movies--basically anything he could get his hands on. I remember going to the Pea Ridge Battlefield when we were little. I remember going to reenactments, where Michael was adamant that his hardtack be authentic, where his haversack was hand-sewn, and where everyone was thrilled when someone mashed a finger in the cannon because that meant they could have real blood on their bandages. Yeah, I know. Craziness. I'm in Bentonville right now, wrapping up the last of my 3 weeks of teacher training. I spent the first 2 weeks ...

Memorial Day #12. It's a day I never could have imagined becoming a reality. And honestly, it's a day I still struggle to come to terms with each year. Sometimes, it feels like there have been 1,000 Memorial Days since my brother was killed. Other times, it feels like each Memorial Day is the first one. And sometimes, my mind and heart go back and forth between the two. So how do you come up with words to explain what this day means? How do you come to terms with a day like Memorial Day when it means something totally different to you than it does to most people? How do you put words to thoughts and feelings you can't even get straight in your head, let alone on paper (or a computer screen, as the case may be)? How do you tell other people something that you can't even really explain to yoursel f? Ho w do you exp lain what it means to have a specific day set aside to remember your brother-- as if you're being told that you shouldn't be remembering him ...

10 years. Somehow it seems like it just happened yesterday , yet a lifetime ago at the same time. 10 years where life has gone on all around me while a part of me has been forever frozen in time. A decade in which I have slowly learned to grieve and live at the same time. My hometown will be dedicating a street to Michael at 10 tomorrow morning on the 10th anniversary of his death. The rest of my family will be there, hearts heavy with the pain of both the day's memories and the death of my grandpa in the quiet hours between last night and this morning. This will be one of many memorials I've missed. You see, for years I couldn't --and wouldn't-- deal with my brother's death, so I didn't go to all the services to honor his sacrifice. My logic was simple: if I didn't have to face it, I didn't have to hurt. The thing is, a heart doesn't work that way. Oh, it can for a while. But by avoiding the pain, never letting it show, all I managed to do...

Home. That word has meant a lot of different places for me through the years, and it's pretty likely that it will mean a few more before we settle down. I'm in a place right now where I'm ready for "Home" to become something permanent; I'll be 30 this summer (I'm not sure when that happened...) and I'm more than anxious to get to a point where Nathan and I can put down roots and stop moving our kids around all over the place. So to get my mind off of the future, I thought I might take a trip down memory lane...would you like to join me? Home was first a little house in Bentonville before Bentonville became what it is today. Just to show how small this word really is, my first home was 2 houses down from where my sister-in-law lives right now. That first home was a place with next door neighbors who became my third set of grandparents. It was the place where Ralph would take me to get candycorn at the grocery store less than half a mile from the ...

Memorial Day is Monday, and I've spent all week trying to figure out what to write. I've started and deleted this post multiple times now, a couple of times trying to just write and let the words come on their own. That usually works for me--writing has always been cathartic and I've never really had to force it (with the exception of one chapter I skipped over in my story , but that's a bit different). I start writing and the words seem to flow on their own, usually leading me somewhere I didn't even realize I was trying to reach. For some reason, though, I just haven't been able to do that this time. I guess I'm struggling with just how to put my feelings about Memorial Day into words. That never used to be a problem. Like most people, this holiday used to simply be the start of summer. It was the first long weekend that everyone could spend at the lake, despite the still somewhat chilly water. That was in Arkansas, mind you--the water up here would b...

I want to tell you a story... It seems Nathan and I have a thing for unexpected adventures, and I was reminded of one that I thought you might enjoy. When Raiden was born, Nathan was still in the Coast Guard and we were living in Astoria, Oregon (if you've never been there, you should visit. I would love to go back some day!). We had gone back to Arkansas so she would be born there, though, so when she was about 2 or 3 weeks old we headed back across country in the Santa Fe--two brand new parents who had no idea what they were doing, one tiny baby girl who didn't know to be scared, and two giant dogs, one of whom was not cut out for travel. My mom thinks you can never be too prepared, so before we headed out she made sure we had about a million baby blankets in the car with us. She wanted to send a candle because she had seen a show that talked about a family getting stuck in their car in a blizzard and apparently a single candle is enough to keep you warm in that situ...

I burnt the toast Saturday morning., and it made me smile. Some the oddest memories link us to people we love, and burnt toast is one of those for me. According to my Great Grandma Hoffman, you make toast by burning it and then scraping off the black parts. This weekend falls right in the middle of finals for me, exams wrapping up my first year of grad school. I'm sure there will be lots of current things for me to write about when our grades are posted for the semester, but for now my burnt toast has triggered a trip down memory lane...so here are a few of the ones that make me smile! ~I can remember a time in elementary school when I was walking home with Pop. One of us had a candy bar, though I can't remember whose it was, and offered the last bite to the other. We ended up passing a tiny bit of chocolate back and forth, each of us biting off a tiny bit so as not to take the last bite. I'm pretty sure it got down to about a 1mm in diameter dot of chocolate! ~M...