memories | Change Is Hard

June 19, 2016
by dawnkinster 8 Comments

Nothing left to add this Father’s Day

For days I’ve felt Father’s Day coming. And I’ve tried to conjure up a Father’s Day post, something sweet and reminiscent like I wrote last year. But for some reason I just don’t have anything profound to say. Nor anything less stirring. This year my mind can’t get around the fact that he’s not here.

He should be.

I should be able to give him a call, send him a card, even go for a visit. A couple weeks ago I did an interview and at the end the reporter asked me to send her pictures of me and dad. I realized I didn’t really have any of him and me together, just the two of us. I thought to myself that I should get a few taken next time I was home.

And then I remembered. Again. I have to keep remembering over and over and it’s just as painful each time.

I can’t make any more pictures. Can’t make any more memories. What I have is all there will be. All there will ever be.

I know I’m lucky that I have the vast number of memories and life experiences that our family created over the decades. Some people don’t have any memories at all. But I’m feeling greedy and wish there could be more.

He was a good man, a good provider, a good dad. He was doing the best he could to adjust to the loss of his life partner, my mom, when he was taken from us.

He should still be here.

This Father’s Day seems harder for me than most of the last twelve that our family has managed to get through. I don’t know why. But I know that tomorrow will be better. And I know we were lucky to have had him at all.

Still, I wish he was here today.

June 5, 2016
by dawnkinster 20 Comments

Rolling down the river

Spending some peaceful time on the river.

I’m a water girl – confirmed years ago growing up on a lake. Get me near water, better yet on water and I’m content. So getting the chance Friday morning to canoe part of the Huron River with my aunt was a gift.

The Huron River starts up near me at Indian Springs, a park Katie and I enjoy regularly, and flows all the way to Lake Erie, 130 miles in all. We paddled 8 miles on Friday morning under a bright blue sky. The water was crystal clear, with large brown fish (trout?) darting below our boat, among the intense green of the river grasses.

Clear river water.

The current was gentle but persistent, assisting our trip downriver but not so quick that we couldn’t enjoy the lovely views along the way. The banks were often covered in blue forget-me-not flowers, the sunlight falling on them in dappled joy through the new spring green foliage of the trees above.

So many pretty places!

Mostly the river was smooth and calm, reflecting the sky and trees, shining on the water bugs scurrying away from our silent canoe. Occasionally we rode through some moderate rapids…

Like a water ride at an amusement park. Only better.

…calling on the skill of my aunt, the expert in the stern to pick the best spot to slide by the largest rocks.

Captain Becky

The only people we saw were fishermen also enjoying the quiet beauty of the river.

Fly fishing.

But we saw lots of nature. A blue heron flew across the river in front of us and around a bend, hidden by trees, only to wait for us in the shallows, ignoring us as we passed. Another heron stood proudly on a log, posing as we glided by.

I’m not going to look at you.

We saw giant snapping turtles laying eggs on sandy banks, mallard ducks preening on a log, and several families of geese enjoying the beautiful sunny day.

Taking the family to the beach.

We had such a lovely time, I’m grateful for the opportunity to canoe with my aunt on a river she and my dad used paddle as kids. I remember other canoe trips with my folks, and one trip on this river, though a different stretch of it, with my dad. The Huron stretches 140 miles across this part of Michigan, and right through the hearts of my family.

Aren’t I lucky.

Bridging generations.

May 26, 2016
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

Healing doesn’t mean you aren’t grieving anymore

In the beginning you believe the worst possible thing that has just happened to you and your family is the absolute worst possible thing ever. That no family, no person can possibly be grieving as deeply as you are. And time passes and your focus shifts slightly beyond your own searing pain and you see that someone else is hurting too. That others have experienced similar events.

That it’s not all about you.

And that’s the first baby step to healing. That realization that you are not alone, that others have similar stories, similar, though not exact, pain.

I’ve started reading Cheryl Strayed’s “Brave Enough.” I’m not very far into it — barely started in fact — and already this quote of hers makes me stop and reread. And nod in agreement. And read it again. And want to share it with all of you.

“”When you recognize that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them, that you would not have chosen the things that happened in your life, but you are grateful for them, that you will hold the empty bowls eternally in your hands, but you also have the capacity to fill them? The word for that is healing.”

And now, not an hour later, I’m reading a blog written by a woman who has been through trials most of us couldn’t imagine, including the sudden death of her husband a year ago. A line down near the bottom of the post stops me again. And makes me want to share it (and her) with you.

“Emotions don’t get better. We get better at holding them. They don’t get less heavy, we get stronger.”

Both women are right. Out of trials and loss and grief and pain we get stronger. And often we grow in directions we might never have moved without the experiences that left indelible scars on our souls.

I never wanted nor dreamed of the losses that changed our family. But given that’s the way it is, I’m pleased to continue the growth, spawned but not defined, by life events.

Wherever you are in the cycle of life, I hope you can see the light and hope and growth shining ahead of you. If you need a hand up, there are plenty of people willing to take hold. And if you’ve moved into a good place yourself, glance around once in awhile. Someone might be there, just in the shadow, ready to move, but needing a little nudge.

I’ll get off the soapbox now.

1954 Dad and Mom

May 24, 2016
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

Bits of this and that

Katie and I are officially camping right now. Only we’re not.

I have the last concert of the season tonight, dress rehearsal was last night. So after rehearsal, late in the night, I gathered her up and we drove over to the State Park where I have a campsite reserved.

Katie was very confused. I woke her up out of a sound sleep when I got home, asked her if she wanted to go camping, she ran to the back door very excited to camp in the back yard, and I picked her up and put her in the car! Oh no she thought! Where are we going? This can’t be good! This is not normal! I like normal!

What’s going on mama? (This is from last year because I haven’t taken the camera to camp yet this trip!)

Once at our campsite, in the dark with only stars overhead she sniffed a bit, wanted to go on a long walk (which I vetoed…it’s good to be the mama) and finally consented to getting in the tent. But she wouldn’t settle down. This was not right! It smelled different! What are we doing mama? Where are we? Why are we here? Where’s my daddy?!?!

Eventually she settled down and we both shivered through the cold night until 5:30 when, according to Sheltie rules, it is important to be wide awake. So we went out, walked down to the bath house, both of us did what we needed to do and we walked back to the tent and went back to sleep.

It all worked out.

Last year we camped a lot!

But now we’re back at the house while I get ready for tonight’s concert. She seems very sleepy. I am too.

We’re playing a bunch of music tonight, and will be joined by selected 7th graders for two pieces. They came to rehearsal last night; they are very good and play like they’re in high school. Oh but the drama of it all! I’d forgotten what it was like to be in 7th grade, so confident, so giggly, so out there. They made our band sound great and it will be fun to preform with them tonight.

And totally unrelated, this happened a couple of mornings ago at home.

Mom and Dad visited for a moment.

A good friend painted the mockingbird on the rock when my parents died. It’s a long story, but I consider the mockingbird to represent my mom, and when one pops up around me I always say hi because it feels like a visit from her.

And the rainbow? Well, after mom died someone in dad’s church gave him a little prism that on sunny days spread a rainbow across his kitchen. That’s still on the windowsill of our lake house. This particular rainbow was created by the sun shining through my front door. I’ve never seen it before, and certainly not shining on mom’s mockingbird.

So I figure I got a joint visit this week. Made me smile pretty wide.

Hope it makes you smile too.

You HAVE to smile at me!

March 31, 2016
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Happy Gotcha Day

Hi sweetie!

Hi Katie-girl, mama here. I wanted to tell you and your loyal subjects the story of your “Gotcha Day,” March 31, 2007, the day we met you and brought you home.

You sleep upside down all the way home that first day.

You slept upside down all the way home that first day.

You don’t remember, but your mama and daddy were very sad when your sister Bonnie went to the rainbow bridge, and even though mama had been communicating with your first mom, we just weren’t quite ready for a new little girl when she had a litter of pups.

What’s that you have mama?

But later, when your first mom told us she had someone special that needed a home we were almost ready, so we said yes. We are so glad we did! You were a bundle of fluff, just 12 weeks old, but already very sure of what you wanted.

Anything good up here?

You were curious right from the start and explored your yard with your daddy and the house with your mama.

Your first walk in the yard.

You found all your favorite places to sleep right away.

So exhausted that first day.

And figured out a crate wasn’t such a bad thing. Unless you had been bad to begin with, which sometimes you were.

Your safe place to snooze while mama studied.

But we couldn’t help but laugh and cuddle you even when you were being your stubborn self.

Caught in the act!

And you let us know right away that you were a princess and demanded pillows. All the pillows.

Princess on her pillow.

These nine years sure have gone by in a hurry sweetheart. I hope you’re happy you’re our little princess. We sure are happy to have you.

You have always loved to be outside.

Though I suppose it’s you that really have us.

Time for another nap.

Happy Gotcha Day sweetie. Mama and daddy love you.

Photogenic right from the start

March 19, 2016
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Funeral musings

Somebody’s dad died this week. Phil was 96, in poor health, and his death wasn’t unexpected. His wife of 65 years said he was ready, that he had seen angels in his hospital room. He was deeply faithful and his family is comforted by that.

It’s only in the past year that I’ve reconnected with his youngest son through Facebook, and it’s only through Facebook that I heard the news of his failing health. And then the death. Funeral arrangements were in my home town, and I made plans to attend. I couldn’t not attend.

He was the father of my best friend from junior high and high school, my college roommate, my peer in the business world after we graduated. My only contact with her parents for the past twenty-four years has been Christmas cards, each of us sending newsy letters about the previous year. And then last year I read that their youngest son’s wife had died unexpectedly and I wrote back asking for an address for him. And that lead to Facebook communication with him.

So I went to the funeral, introduced myself to the oldest daughter, hugged the wife and both sons. The person I most wanted to hug was my old best friend. But I couldn’t because she wasn’t there. You see, the last time I had seen any of these people was twenty-four years ago at Sallie’s funeral. She died from an aggressive leukemia when she was 36.

I can’t say that I still think of her every day. But I think about her a lot. And I was talking to her inside my head during the entire service for her dad. I was looking at her older sister and picturing Sallie as she might look at age sixty. Sixty! The age we both should be right now. But I can only remember her as she was at my wedding when we were both 34. Or how she was the last time I saw her a couple weeks before she died.

She would have liked to be turning sixty. Unlike me who is struggling a bit with that number, she would have embraced it, planned an adventure, charged right toward it. Her sister thanked me for coming to the funeral, ‘representing Sallie.’ I don’t think I was representing her so much as honoring her along with her dad. They were both fine human beings. I miss her. I know her siblings will be missing them both.

This family has been through a lot of loss, more than just this recent loss and the loss of their daughter and sister so long ago. But they are strong. Strong in their love for each other and strong in their belief that those in the family who have gone ahead are all together, and will greet each of them when their time comes.

At the cemetery an honor guard folded the flag that had draped the casket and gave it to Phil’s wife. I glanced up at the sky and saw the clouds forming a huge heart right above the tent. I’m pretty sure it was Sallie and her dad comforting us and letting us all know we are loved.

And then taps played and I began to cry all over again.

March 10, 2016
by dawnkinster 19 Comments

In a box

We’ve been sorting stuff here. Boxes of stuff that has lived in the basement for almost a quarter century. Today I worked through several boxes of books, most of which I donated to our local library for their regular book sale.

And then there was the box of ‘office supplies.’

Most of what was in there turned out to be the dregs of my desk, emptied when I left the employment of a bank back in 1992. A rolodex filled with Realtor business cards, phone numbers to county water departments, tax offices, appraisers. Old business cards of my own, a clock, pens. Spent rubber bands.

And down at the bottom was a hanging file containing a pile of letters from my mother.

I’ve only read a couple, both from the mid 90’s. They’re nothing extraordinary, filled with weather and what’s blooming, lake temperatures and levels, birds she’d seen. Baby ducks. Many of them are handwritten, though in later years when she learned that newfangled word processor called a personal computer they began to be typed.

When I was a kid I watched my mom write a postcard to her mother every week. Tiny little script filling up every inch of the postcard surface. Often she ran the last sentence up the side of the card. There are a few postcards to me in the file too, completely covered in her writing.

I don’t have to read them all to feel good. Just seeing her handwriting makes me smile.

I know that eventually I should sort them out, maybe get them into a binder for easier reading. But suddenly that seems too hard. I’ve been scanning family pictures for days. Her face and the faces of all of us are everywhere I look, spread across the table, entrenched in the back of my eyes. Such young faces, all of us, even mom and dad.

We were all so young.

And now here are her letters and it feels as though she and dad are just off somewhere on vacation. That I’ll get another letter in the mailbox next week or the week after that, sharing the latest trip, the daffodils in bloom now, the bluebirds building in the nest box down by the water. Even now, eleven years later, when I go out to the mailbox there’s that little bit of anticipation about what might be there.

But now I have this treasure trove of letters.

I’m glad I kept them, and I’ll read them all again someday. It’s not the same of course. But it’s not overtly sad, just tinged a bit with wistfulness. I know I’m lucky she was a letter writer and I’m a saver. It’s good to see her handwriting, it’s almost like hearing her speak.

I guess there is some benefit to sorting through boxes. I found a hug from my mom.

March 1, 2016
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

Scanning memories

Technology. It frustrates me, confuses me, tests my patience, pushes my buttons. I’m not even on the learning curve but usually somewhere far behind it. So I’m feeling pretty progressive these days as I help a friend scan her family photos. And I try not to think about discussions we had in library grad school about technology changing and future generations (or even sooner) having to move collections of documents and data to whatever the latest viewing technology is available. That someday no one will be able to view CDs full of data unless they have an antique reading device. And that paper documents still available from centuries ago are still readable if they were preserved.

But that’s another blog.

This one is about the process of providing access to memories for everyone. The way to distribute family photos among surviving members electronically, quickly and efficiently. And that’s a misnomer in itself. Once a file is complete the transfer to other people will be quick. But putting that file together takes a long time.

I love the 'mid-century-ish" of this. And it was mid century too

I love the ‘mid-century-ness” of this. And it was mid-century too.

I cleaned out a closet this week and found a box filled with random photos, some of them very old, of family. They are so fun to look at, and bring back so many memories that I want to share them with my brothers and sister. So I’m scanning them into a file. And I’ve found that scanning a friend’s family photos is much faster than scanning my own.

Working through a pile of photos spanning my own history takes time. Time to peruse each image, each face, to take in the background and figure out which house, which city, which trip, which year. To sort out which baby image belongs to which child.

Time slips away as I am immersed. And then the dog barks, or the snow slides noisily off the roof, and I am jolted back to reality. Mom and Dad are gone. My brothers and sister live far away. I miss them all but am still very thankful that I have the memories captured in these random photos.

And so I scan the next picture and smile at the baby smiling back and remember summer days and adventures from long ago. Someday this project will be complete and I’ll be giving them their memories for review. I hope they enjoy them as much as I did putting it all together.

I can’t see how they won’t. Who can resist pictures of cute kids?

Lean on me…

February 26, 2016
by dawnkinster 16 Comments

Support your local kids. Even if you don’t have any of your own.

There’s magic behind these curtains.

Forty-four years ago I played in the pit orchestra for our high school spring musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. I was sixteen. I remember long rehearsals and the weekend performances like they happened yesterday and coincidentally yesterday was opening night at my local high school’s production of the same piece. I couldn’t resist going, especially since a number of the kids that play with our community band were playing in the pit for this production.

It was magic.

The musicians were stupendous, the acting was great, the voices strong and sure. I remembered it all, the lines, the songs, the jokes, even obscure bits of music blending into the background. I remembered Billy Bigelow the out of work carousel barker, and Julie Jordan the mill worker who fell in love but who were too scared to admit it. I remember Carrie and her beau Enoch Snow the uptight fisherman. I remembered the bad choices that were made and how even in the worst of times people pulled together and eventually did the right thing.

I was transported.

Such talent we have among us! And they loved what they were doing so much that their enthusiasm spread through the auditorium. I kept seeing my own classmates in their faces, yet they interpreted the piece as their own. They earned the standing ovation at the conclusion and you could see the glee on their faces as they accepted our applause.

School musicals, band and orchestra concerts, debate team competitions, robotics challenges, sports events, art showings, these all showcase the best of what these young adults have to offer. They deserve to be supported. The auditorium should have been sold out last night. I hope it is tonight and Saturday and Sunday too.

Even if you don’t have kids in your local school district check out what’s going on there. I bet every high school in the country is putting on a spring musical right about now.

Take a chance.

Disrupt your usual evening of watching television, arguing politics, doing laundry or reading a book and head out to see what the kids are putting together. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Those of you that live locally, there’s still five more performances here. It’s stopped snowing, there’s no excuse not to go. Let’s sell out that auditorium.

Attend a high school musical and prepare to be transported.

Good job!

February 5, 2016
by dawnkinster 8 Comments

Happy birthday sister!

Happy Birthday to my sister…

Wonder what’s in the news today?

…life long learner, educator, caretaker, excellent baker, friend.

May your birthday be full of light and laughter….even if that has to wait till after work. In fact, let’s just say that this whole weekend is your birthday!

We love you!

-The rest of the Badger kids

Badger kids all together.

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: memories