On New Year's Eve

When Pam's kids were younger, I spent quite a few New Year's Eves "partying" at their place. Pam would buy a bunch of heat-and-serve hors d'oeuvres, and we would eat them in shifts through the night...pizza rolls at 8, pigs-in-a-blanket at 9, and so on. There was usually a cheese ball, and some flavor of sparkling juice so that we could pretend like we were drinking champagne. There was a box of hats and noisemakers that always appeared, and midnight was a flurry of jumping, screaming, confetti, and poking fun at Dick Clark. One year, apparently, somebody (whose arms are those in the background?) thought it would be cute to put a hat on Doreen (or is that Carol?)...she doesn't look amused. Now, Pam was never a "night person." As long as I can remember, she always went to bed quite early, and New Year's Eve was always a struggle for her. Some time after the 10 o'clock food, she would wrap herself up in the nearest blanket and start to drift off to sleep on the couch. She would make us promise to wake her at midnight, but that was never easy. She would grumpily sit up, give a half-hearted "Yippee," and kiss everyone on her way to bed. I was not surprised to find this picture of Pam and friends, at a raucous blast at their house in New Hampshire (year?). I'm not sure if this was taken before or after her New Year's Nap, but notice that she is not motivated to tell the dog to get off the coffee table...but now that I think of it, did she ever tell a dog to get off the coffee table anyway? Happy New Year, Pammie!

On Christmas Eve

There's a lot to be said for someone who will just dance...let loose, unembarrassed, worrying about nothing except having a good old time. Pammie would dance anytime, anywhere. Just turn on the music, and off she went.

Christmas Eves at the Clarks were always a blast, with the traditional food, drink, and visit by the Oswalds. Other neighbors came and went over the years, but the Clarks and Oswalds were ALWAYS together on Christmas Eve. One year Pam had the great idea of adding dancing to the party. She brought a CD from home and organized a raucous dance of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." It involved making giant rings with your arms, drumming imaginary drums, and twirling like a ballerina.

The idea was met with mixed reviews...some of us loved it, some of us not so much. But even the audience had a ball, laughing and rolling on the floor as we imitated the geese-a-laying. We probably did this 3 or 4 years in a row, with various people joining in or sitting out. One of the pics below even shows Stephanie in her "I don't know these people" phase, but I'm sure she danced with us at least once. I couldn't find a picture of it, but Paul Oswald joined in too at some point, with belly laughs and broken English.

I have to believe that Heaven is full of dancing. I'm not sure if the Angels do it differently than we did, maybe even reverently and with grace. But this Christmas, maybe Paulie and Pam are teaching them the basics, like how to balance on one foot as you imitate a partridge in a pear tree.

Christmas Eve's Gone By

I have been trying to remember the Christmas Eve's of my past (I sound like I should be in a Christmas Carol). When I was a kid, Christmas Eve was a quiet evening, my family celebrated Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve my father would come home from work at about 3pm and say, "Ok, let's go shopping for mommy's Christmas presents". So me and I think my sister would go to Macy's or Sears with my dad and help him pick out PJ's, a robe, slippers and maybe some jewelry. I then remember watching the Yule Log burn on Channel 9. I said it was quiet.
When I married Ed, I became a part of the Clark/Oswald Christmas Eve celebration. There were lots of presents, good OD's to eat (swedish meatball, little pizza's, little hot dogs, homemade cookies etc) and even for a year or 2 wild dancing to the 12 Days of Christmas (Pammie especially loved the crazy hand motions for each day). Then a few years ago, the Clark Christmas Eve celebration abruptly ended. Peg said it was too much work, we offered to help, but she declined to continue what I think had been going on for quite a few years before I came in. Pammie was quite upset that this traditon was ending. That first Christmas Eve without a place to go, I felt a little lost. We ended up going to a Christmas Eve kids service with our nieghbors (Jackie and Raul) and then going back to their house for a glass of wine. I thought, Ok, maybe we will do this now for Christmas Eve, but in the spring Jackie and Raul moved to Panama, so that ended that.
Then Pammie said she would like to host Christmas Eve at her house. We said great! She and Jul prepared mostly the same food, we had a few less people, but instead of crazy dancing, we had many crazy dogs to occupy us. So we now had a new place for Christmas Eve. Steph, Nick and Chris and Eddie were always up for games and it was always a fun time.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we sadly again find ourselves looking for the right place to be.
We (I actually) decided that we will go to Christmas Eve service at my church. We will sing Christmas Carols (I am sure I will cry), but it seems like the right place to be. Thank you Lord for always giving us a place to be when we feel lost.
Pammie this year talked about hosting this Christmas Eve. She had said she would cater food, because it would be easier and asked if we would come. I said "Pammie if you are hosting, I am coming".
I am grateful for the wonderful memories of Christmas Eve's gone by. Miss you, Auntie Pammie, Merry Christmas.

Love,

Auntie Eileen

Yes, I think I will pet that dog in the pet store.

Mommy was a notorious dog lover. I mean, like uber-crazy in love. Seriously people, it was like she had the south pole of a magnet embedded in her hand, and ever dog's head was the north pole of another magnet. The love didn't stop at her own, as she couldn't never resist a dog that came in the proximity, possibly even crossing the road to do so.

The place where her desire to stalk down random dogs was most obviously, the pet store (enter chain name here). As an young teen, going to the pet store with mommy was not on the top of my list, as embarrassment was an necessary badge of honor for teens, and what ensued at the pet store was inevitable embarrasment. She'd stop by every dog, get down on the floor, pet the dog, talk to the dog, and yes, let the dog lick her face. Enter stage left: Me. I can remember literally pulling on her arm for her to stand up, mumbling under my breath, or possibly, even taking the cart and proceeding to shop without her.

The only reason I don't feel bad about this previous stage of embarrassment, is that through such persistence, mommy broke me down until I was an equal partner in crime. Sooner enough, I ended up joining my mother on the floor, talking to and petting random dogs, and yes, letting them lick my face.

Today I took the train over to the West Side to go to Petland Discounts. I needed to keep up mommy's regular tradition of buying toys for all the animals in the family, half brothers included(that's you Block Head, if you're reading this). In the toy section, I turned around and there was a nice friendly looking doggy and their human. I felt an instant rush in my veins. I say this in all seriousness, like a magnetic pull to this animal. I asked politely if I could pet him. I stayed and talked the owner for a few minutes, and gave Vito some pats (Vito was the dog) and said goodbye.

I honestly feel that rush in my veins and the hotness in my face was mommy pulling me over to the doggy. I love that she was uber-crazy in love with dogs, and I'm 100% proud to be inheriting this trait from mommy.

I sometimes name random dogs in my head when I see them passing on the street.

Catching you up on Pam sightings

The Monday after Pam's funeral was my first day back at work. In my "Participation in Government" class we were talking about community service so I started babbling about all of the seeing eye dogs of course. It felt empowering to talk about it but it was too hard for me to keep going for long so I had to stop.

The first weekend in December Chris and I did a bunch of Christmas shopping. We were in Bed, Bath and Beyond. There was this huge set of about 100 cookie cutters. There were letters, numbers and all sorts of colorful ones. I wanted to buy them for her so so so so bad. Needless to say I was all teared up the whole way to Best Buy.

In Wegman's last weekend I saw a bunch of Christmas cards inspired by the 12 days of Christmas. The punchline obviously is that each one was inspired by a different breed of dog. They were so cute. There was of course one about German Shepherds. Oh man did I want to give it to her.

I participated in a Cookie Exchange at work. I baked 12 dozen cookies for people and received that many in return. Chris and I will be bringing half of them to Ed and Eileen's for all of you to enjoy. I am generally calm but I was definitely getting frustrated after awhile. It was definitely the sort of task would have completed more happily and calmly than I.

Chris and I have had a hard time accepting that we can not physically talk to her. I honestly have "prayed" to her before I go to sleep almost every night for the past month. I am not religious in any sense of the word but it helps right now.

After reading all of your posts, a funny conversation I had with her awhile ago is coming to mind. Fall 2007 was the last time Pam, Julien (and Nick too) I believe made it up to Buffalo to visit us. We were all in this fabulous used bookstore. Pam and I really had to go. We went in some pizza place. We left. She said something like "You know when you are pregnant one day you will have to pee a million times a day." I remember laughing at the time. It still is funny even though its obviously bittersweet now. I would be willing to have this converaation every day until Chris and I have a child one day if it meant she were still here. (I recognize this might be the strangest things posted to this blog yet lol).

Love you all!

P.S. I have huge feet. I do not think I could fit a daisy between my toe. lol. Love the story behind the name though.

Christmas Traditions

Since I have been with my husband, Uncle Ed, (Pammie's brother), every Christmas has had the highlight of a visit with Aunt Meg. First Aunt Meg alone, then Aunt Meg and Uncle Mike, then Aunt Meg, Uncle Mike and Emma and now Aunt Meg, Uncle Mike and Emma and baby Michael. This year will be the first year in 17 years that we will not be together. While I totally understand why it is not happening, it still feels like a tradition is changing. Many people have told me that when there is a loss in a family, things change and new traditions are started. I hope to make personally sure that we do start some new traditions.
I guess the first holidays will be the hardest. I remember last year Pammie and I and Big Grandma and Eddie were planning our day after Christmas trip to Michigan and we were very excited about it. Believe it or not, with Pammie in the car I looked forward to the trip. There were good snacks, good conversation and music to sing out loud to ( the Sound of Music soundtrack was a favorite). Who would think I would miss a 12 hour car ride? This year I even got a new car with a great GPS system, so I wouldn't have to stress Pammie about following the directions from our map quest sheet. That was the one thing Pammie needed a little help with. I remember once, we were near Cleveland and I knew an exit or turn was coming up and I said to Pammie, "What do I do?" She proceeded to start at Step 1 of the directions and told me to make a left turn at the end of my street! I said (very excitedly) "Pam, we are in Ohio! Skip to the middle of the Page!" From then on, Pammie would hold a marker (for the full 12 hours) and cross out the turns we made, so we would always be up to date in the directions. The first time we drove out there, Nick and Eddie were with us and I remember deputizing Nick to be the co-captain of the trip and he took over the reading of the directions. I hope Pammie wasn't too upset about that. I think she understood my anal and controling tendencies.

Anyway, so we are going to Michigan in January instead of December. I am just happy we are going. Maybe a new tradition has begun.

Love,
Aunt Eileen

Wake Up Call

Growing up, managing the morning bathroom time was a challenge...two parents, two teenagers and a five year old sharing a bath and a half. There was some routine of who got to use the potty when, but all I knew was that Pam would wake me every morning when it was my turn. She would come to my door and sing, of course...lots of different songs, but I remember this one best...

When cows wake up in the morning, they always say "Good day!"
When cows wake up in the morning, they always say "Good day!"
"Moo! Moo! Moo! Moo!"
That is what they say, they say,
"Moo! Moo! Moo! Moo!"
That is what they say.

That would continue with a sheep, a dog, a cat, and even a fish. The fish would just make a fish face, since fish don't talk. Pam was very good at the fish face. I can picture my view of her from my bed. She would stand in the doorway, and sometimes she would take the stuffed animals off of my shelves and they would do the singing. Sure beats an alarm clock. :)

Little tree in a pot. With ornaments.

Aunt Eileen came over yesterday. I'd promised mommy long ago that I'd make sure the house was decorated, and I'd recruited Aunt Eileen to help, because she's just plain great at stuff like that. While mom usually went all out for Christmas decorating, we decided it'd be a bit less overwhelming if we kept it simple, but keeping mom-esque feel. Aunt Meg had helped mom buy a beautiful (seriously, it looks gorgeous) little tree. It's small and potted, and we put it on a little table (with a star tablecloth mommy picked out) in front of the window. The tree is small, so it couldn't hold a lot of ornaments. Christmas ornaments a a really important part of the D/C/E family tradition, made more so when a few years ago the women in the family started giving each other ornaments with significance. We never had too many fancy ornaments growing up, as mom much preferred still using the ones we used our whole lives, mostly the ones me the brothers made growing up. Since it wasn't even a conceivable option to not put out ornaments, I found that the ribbon tied around the base of the tree's pot was sufficient enough to hang some ornaments off of. Again, it's small, so I had to be selective. Here's the one's that made the cut;

- The "Chris" Ornament - An ornament Chris made probably at the age of 4 or 5, a cardboard wheel with painted macaroni pasted to it, tied with yarn

- The "Stephanie" Ornament - Basically an ornament I'd made in 1st or second grade, consisting of picture of me, framed with popsicle sticks.

-The "Nick" Ornament - Much like my own, his was a picture of himself pasted to some sort of laminated paper he'd colored on. This is absolutely one of my favorite ornaments ever. Most of you knew Nick as a kid, for those who don't, imagine probably the cutest 4/5 year old ever, with a honkin' pair of glasses. Seriously, cutest kid ever. No, I'm serious.

-The "Snot" Ornament - OK, no, we're not that gross people. We had this set of glow in the dark plastic"icicle" ornaments as kids, but have since lost the glow after probably 20 odd years. So, the snot part. These ornaments look like big boogers. My brothers and I found this to be the best part of decorating, and I recollect the tree of us all but elbowing and clothes-lining each other to get to these snot-sicles. Whoever got it would hide it in their hands, and proceed "sneezing" and flicking the 4 others with the snot-sicle.

While decorating a tree won't ever be the same, I cant help but think that mom would be pretty darn happy with the job we did.

-The "Emma" Ornament -This is a little circle/bell shaped piece of wood little cousin Emma painted last year. My mom loved this little girl like you can't even imagine, and, the kid's a friggin' genius, so I'm pretty sure the ornament will be worth money some day.

-The "Wedding" Ornament - As part of the ornament trade, the Christmas after Aunt Meg got married made an amazing wedding themed ornament. It's a glass ball with ribbons inside that go along with the colors of her wedding. Actually, they may be ribbon actually from her wedding, but Aunt Meg will have to validate that statement, as i often daydream things and believe them to be true.

-The "Chair" Ornament - On a trip to Michigan to visit the Elias' I'd missed, the family painted old chairs with designs, to use as garden decor and elsewhere. I guess this was a pretty significant thing, because that year at the ornament trade, both Aunt Eileen and Mommy made chair ornaments for everyone. The one hanging up is one cousin Eddie made.

-The "Seapoint" Ornament - Off and on for the 5 or 6 years, my family has been venturing to Seapoint Village near Cape May for vacations. Sometimes it was everyone, sometimes it was some of us, but these vacations are just plain awesome. One particular year, I was boogie-boarding, and I looked back and had the company of a few dolphins. Yes, I tend to exaggerate things (a gift from mom), but, in all seriousness, these dolphins were under my feet. It was awesome.That year at Christmas, I believe it was Aunt Eileen (fact check?) who gave out glass dolphin ornaments.

-The "First" Ornament - This wasn't hung on the tree, but on the window, where my mom tended to leave out some of her favorite ornaments. There are about 10 or 15 scattered around the frame, that you cant even notice unless you really look. On the window, we hung a little silver bag with "Christmas 1981," which I had no idea what that meant. It was the year mommy and daddy got married.


Though Christmas decorating just can't be the same with mommy, it helps to think that I know she'd be extremely happy with the job we'd done.

Flapjacks

Because she was 12 when I was born, Pam loved to take care of me like I was her little girl. She tried to make everything fun...I was reminded of this when I made pancakes on Saturday morning. When the little dribbles on the skillet got crispy, I gave them to Emma and told her they were teeny, tiny, baby pancakes. Way back when Pam made them for me, she would try to flip over even the smallest drops of batter, so she could put a little pile of them on my plate.

Sometimes she even added food coloring to make the meal interesting. One time, we were out of orange and red, so she used green. Apparently she didn't foresee the problem I would have eating green pancakes...I must have been 5 or 6, and I remember looking at them on my plate and feeling queasy. I ate them, but it was not a happy breakfast. Pam kept telling me there was nothing wrong with them. I saw her put the coloring in, but it bothered me...especially the way the green mush spread into the syrup. Immediately after I finished, I had to run to the bathroom to get sick. Yes, I puked up the "bad" pancakes!

Pam rarely teased me, but I do remember that she made fun of me for a long time after that one. Maybe next time I'll make Emma some pink ones...definitely not green, or even worse, blue! Blech.

This Morning...

Was the first day I woke up and cried because I missed mommy. Neither this day nor this date is significant. It is no different than yesterday, and the same as tomorrow. I struggle with not being angry that she left me. I miss her most in the morning.

On the topic of Angels...

Mommy loved angels. Aunt M and E took their favorites from my parent's to remember mommy, believe me, mommy has so many angels, I cant even tell which ones went M.I.A. I had this guilt for a few days for not having a particular one I wanted, and if I did, where the heck would I really put it? Leaving my parents the other day, I'd spotted one that all but screamed my name. It's a corner angel, and mommy had it resting on the corner of the giant window in the living room. Without knowing it before, daddy told me he'd bought this for mommy years ago. I took the angel back to my aparmtnet, and put it up right above my bedroom doorway, near the foot of my bed. It's the first thing I see when I wake up, and the last thing I see before bed. Though I've seen this angel and countless other throughout my life, maybe it took me loosing mine to realize how incredibly beautiful they are.

Christmas Angels

Today, I was helping to set up for the Christmas sale at the Thrift Shop where I volunteer once a week. Auntie Pammie loved to come to the shop and browse and especially enjoyed the Christmas Sale where she could pick up LOTS of Christmas stuff for her kids . As I was unpacking boxes today, I noticed that there seemed to be lots of Angels -ornaments, ceramic figures, dolls. Maybe there are always lots of angels, but I am noticing more now. Auntie Pammie loved her angels. We also had more help today setting up then we have had in the past few years and we call these helpers our angels. Maybe Pammie sent the angels as her way of being with us at the sale. Love you Auntie Pammie!
egc

Hiker Man, Coming Thru.

Mommy was in love with all things Appalachian Trail. Detailing his journey along the trail, Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” is what sent my mom into Appalachian fever. Though I didn’t get to experience too many of the hikes with her, she’d gotten to do a few short hikes with my Aunt M and Aunt E (insert other family member names here) the years before she passed away. On one hike I had missed, the fams crossed paths with a thru-hiker, my mother completely enthralled, asking him question after question about his trek. My mother was relentless about me reading “A Walk in the Woods,” and although I am a picky reader, I finally gave in and started reading it a few months ago. Though I haven’t finished it, I wish I could have been there, because I have dozens of questions for mister mysterious hiker man.

Driving home the other day, I realized there is a small part of the road that "the trail" cuts across. Now, I use the term "the trail" loosely because I don’t actually know if it's the Appalachian trail, but a trail nonetheless. That should theoretically count for the integrity of the story, correct? So anyways, said trail, said road, the point is that the car in front of me was stopped. A hiker man with a large pack, sleeping bag and everything hanging off, was crossing the road. I’ve driven that road an unbelievable amount of times, never once seeing anyone cross at the junction. Although I hope it’s not the same hiker man my mom met (for he would have to had been going in circles for some time), I like the signs mommy sends me to let me know she’s just “passing thru.”

Christmas Shopping

I do not like to shop...but my sister? She LOVED it...shopping for gifts, cards, craft junkamola, you name it. She spent many hours over the last few months in bed, poring over catalogs and making lists for Christmas. This was a good substitute for the real thing, and she seemed to truly enjoy picking out just the right thing for each person.

So yesterday I started my own Christmas shopping, and I did it with Pammie in mind. I started a list in a little notebook, and I tried to embrace the giving spirit of the holiday. After the kids went to bed, I sat down and did some online shopping, and I bought some gifts for my husband that my sister helped me pick out just a week before she passed away. In the next few weeks, I hope to give up some of the "burden" that holiday shopping seems to be, and enjoy it for her.