memories | Change Is Hard

December 22, 2014
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Sunday afternoon surprise adventure

Katie here! Hey, bet you didn’t expect to hear from me again so soon! My mama doesn’t let me have her blog very often you know, but since it’s Christmas and all I guess she’s feeling generous. Or she doesn’t have anything to say. Either way it works for me!

In the Arboretum.

So she was lying around the house all weekend. I was plenty bored but after awhile I just gave up and went off to sleep in my secret places. But then she turned off the TV and said: “Katie-girl! Where are you?” And of course I came running because whenever my mama calls me I get right to her as fast as I can in case she’s handing out treats and such. Well this time she was still on the sofa and she asked me if I’d like to go for a ride with her. A ride! Well OF COURSE MAMA! I jumped right on top of her and licked her in the face and then I barked and barked and barked and then I jumped off of her and ran to the door and I barked and barked and barked and then I ran around the sofa a bunch, and then around her feet while she was trying to walk and I kept barking.

I guess you get the picture.

Grandpa & Grandma’s rock

So anyway, my mama took me down to see her Mom and Dad’s rock on the banks of the Huron River. She’s been missing them lately, what with all the family movies and advertisements and stuff on TV, so she took me for a visit.

I never got to meet them.

I wasn’t the least bit interested in the river or the ducks that she said were “right there baby!”

Ducks are boring!

I was much more interested in the other people and their dogs. We only stayed at the rock for a moment or two and then we went walking in the hills. It sure was pretty back there. I guess they got a little snow, but mostly it was just wet leaves.

A little bit of snow.

As we were climbing up and down the hills my mama kept saying “Easy, easy girl” so I wouldn’t pull her and her camera down into the mud. Silly mama. Like I’d ever do that. When I didn’t have her hanging on to me I was as nimble as a mountain goat!

Running down a hill.

We had a really good time. We talked to a couple of people who were out walking their dogs. One lady in particular had a dog named Gus and we walked with them for awhile. The lady was talking to mama about camping with Gus. Mama wishes she had gotten the lady’s name, she says she thinks we could have had a good time going on walks with them again.

Lots of good sniffing!

I slept all the way home, but don’t tell my mama that. I like her to think I’m always vigilant.

Don’t you know.

December 20, 2014
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

WordPress Photo challenge – yellow

I know. Yellow??

The point of the original post was that we are surrounded with holiday colors this time of year, blue and silver, red and green. But does yellow have a special meaning for anyone this holiday season?

Turns out it does for me.

Sandy’s favorite color

This time the photo challenge isn’t about finding an interesting representation or a stunning photograph. This time it’s just about friendship and nostalgic memories.

And jingle bell socks.

You see there once was a woman here at work who loved the holidays so much that as Christmas approached she wore socks with jingle bells sewn into them. We all smiled as we heard her coming and going. I wrote about her last winter when she died after a short illness; how she was everyone’s ‘work mom,’ confidant, advice giver, listener. How we were going to miss her.

Her favorite color was yellow, and everyone at her funeral wore yellow ribbons in her honor. I pinned it to the dusty dirty wall of my cubicle last February and look at it every day. I can still hear her voice and her laugh in my head, and I hope I will always be able to bring her to mind and smile.

I’ve been thinking about her a lot these past few weeks as the holidays descend, as work stays crazy and home life gets crazier. And once in awhile when I hear the faint jingle of a bell I’m pretty sure it’s her checking in on us.

If you see me walking around grinning it’s because she’s still with me whenever I see the color yellow this holiday season.

So….how you doing girlfriend? We miss you.

Merry Christmas up there in heaven.

October 16, 2014
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

The truth behind the trip

We enjoyed sharing our trip around Lake Michigan with you through photos here on this blog and on Facebook. It was a lot of fun exploring new places, revisiting places we used to work and live, spending a tiny bit of time with friends from long ago. Mostly it was good to get away and explore.

But that’s not the reason we went.

As most of you know I volunteer for the Truck Safety Coalition (TSC), a nonprofit group that works on safety issues surrounding commercial trucks. We work through Congress and the agencies of the Department of Transportation (DOT). Most of us have family members that were killed or injured in crashes with commercial trucks and those experiences inspire us to work hard to make our roads safer.

Last week members of my family and I, along with the Executive Director of TSC and a member of another family who has also been forever changed by a truck crash, spent the day at a huge trucking company learning about their safety procedures, their plans for future safety enhancements and their feelings about the issues we’ve been working on. They invited us to come visit their facilities and talk, to see which issues we agree on and what we might be able to work on together for the good of everyone – to make our roads safer.

Imagine that.

A giant in the industry invited us, a group of hurting, stubborn, sometimes angry individuals who have no ties to trucking except through tragedy, to sit at their table and talk with them. They listened to us, expressed concern and empathy, and then told us how they are approaching safety and answered our questions as we tried to familiarize ourselves with their side of the issues.

Unprecedented.

We won’t be able to agree on everything. These are complicated issues; electronic monitoring, rules about hours of service, minimum liability insurance increases, maximum size and weight challenges, even how drivers are paid. But the more we talk the better the odds are for positive change.

TSC has worked with Congress and made some advances. We’ve worked with the DOT and made some advances. And now we’re working with a part of the trucking industry. Maybe this is another front, an untapped resource. We’ve not anti-trucking as some would like to portray us. We remind people that truck drivers die too. We’re working for safer trucking, for the good of everyone.

As a group we need to explore every avenue to safety. I am glad we got the invitation, and I’m glad I went. I learned a lot. I saw compassion and humanity on the ‘other side’ and realized once again that we’re all in this together. I know that no one individual, no one group, no one truck company can make it all right.

But together we can make it better.

We do it one day, one rule, one law, one truck company at a time. We do it in honor of those we loved and lost, in honor of the hundreds of thousands of injured. In honor of all of them we work for change. This time change began in a meeting room of a large truck company and this change is good.

And that’s why we went. Miss you Dad.

October 5, 2014
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

What we leave behind

I’m getting ready for a road trip, my favorite kind of travel; a little random, sometimes spontaneous, always interesting. Freeing. But as I’m packing the last bits of things into the suitcase I look around. Is the house clean? Is the bed made. Are things put away?

Do you do that? Check out the house before you walk out the door? I do. Every single time. Whether I’m headed for work, a week long trip, or just running to the grocery store. Because you never know if you’re coming back. You never know if someone else will be walking into your home after you’re gone and you wouldn’t want the house to be a mess.

I’ve been this way for ten years. Ever since the summer of 2004 when my mom went off to church and didn’t come home, and then dad went to the airport for a holiday visit and didn’t come home either. Neither of them knew they were leaving home for the last time. I often picture mom picking up her purse, climbing into the car and driving off to town. I picture dad tossing his luggage in the trunk and heading out into the dark morning. I imagine they checked a few things, mom making sure she had her reading glasses because she played the organ at church, dad making sure the thermostat was turned down because he’d be away a week.

Neither of them could possibly imagine that their children would walk back into that house in tears and without them. But I can image it. I know what it’s like to walk into a place that was once someone’s home and is now just the keeper of the memories and the stuff belonging to people we loved. So before I head off on the next adventure I take a quick look around.

Just in case.

Because you never know.

September 4, 2014
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Dreaming….dream dream dream…..dreaming….

I had a dream this morning just before Katie the dog woke me up at 5.

I had to give a talk to a group of people. I didn’t know what the topic was but I was walking there carrying a cement planter filled with soil. On top of the soil were some roses, some with short stems, some with longer stems. I was going to put the roses in some sort of vases I hoped I could find when I got to my destination. I was wearing black pants and a red shirt with a black sweater over it, and carrying a brown cardigan. I thought I’d just put the brown cardigan on when I got there. I was thinking about how to talk about family and garden no matter what the topic was that I was supposed to be speaking on.

Turns out the topic was supposed to be serenity.

So I’m at the venue and carrying this stupid cement planter and the roses are wilting so I set it down on one of the crowded long tables where there were little name plates assigning seats. But all the tables are strewn with other people’s stuff and I can’t find my name. I finally find the name of someone else at work, and I know she’s not coming so I decide to sit in her spot. But my cement planter is now far off on another table and the roses look horrible so I leave it there, and go put on my brown cardigan over my black sweater and red shirt and black pants and I look in the mirror and the combination looks terrible so I’m taking off the sweaters and trying to get organized and think about what I can say about serenity when it’s my turn.

I walk back into the room tucking in my red shirt and say:

“How many of you have a stressful job? Raise your hands. Yep, me too. I work in the mortgage industry. If you looked up serenity in a dictionary on my desk the word wouldn’t even be in there. So I ask you – what do you do to relax once you leave that stressful job? Me? I go work in the garden. Well, it’s not really a garden per se, it’s pretty full of weeds, but if you go out and pull weeds for an hour and let your mind go blank you’ll relax and at the end you’ll have something concrete to show for it too. I also travel. Last week I went swimming. Well, not really swimming exactly, we went to New Hampshire and the ocean was so cold I could only run in and out. We went to visit my Aunt on my Dad’s side of the family. She wasn’t home. We knew she wasn’t going to be home but we went to visit anyway just to relax. New Hampshire is serene. I think my Uncle was serene before he died. He was over ninety. Husband’s aunt is going to be 99 this month and she seems serene too. Maybe you learn to be that way the older you get. Maybe as you age you really do learn not to let stuff get to you. Maybe as the years go by the serenity piles up. Maybe it’s not that I’m stressed, maybe it’s just that I’m too young to recognize serenity. Maybe it’s an acquired skill.”

So.

Lesson learned from this dream? Find some serenity today no matter how old or young you are.

And smell a rose along the way.

Katie says HI to everybody!

Wanna play?

September 1, 2014
by dawnkinster 10 Comments

Letter to Mom

Hey Mom,

Sunset at the lake

We’ve been thinking about you as all your kids gather in the house you and Dad built on the lake. I’m sure you two were here too, laughing over the silly stuff, bobbing out at the end of the dock, your toes pointed to the sky, maybe even jumping from the dock for the traditional family photo, though I know you didn’t like to get water in your eyes.

Hey Mom

Last night we went out to the big water to watch the sun set. I know you and Dad liked to do that and the neighbors say he went out alone just about every evening that summer after you died.

Heading home

It sure was great out on the warm water with the crescent moon hanging overhead. The sunset didn’t pan out all that well; we only had one pink cloud, but we had a really nice time anyway.

Of course I’m sure you already know that.

Wish you and Dad were here.

Jump!

August 24, 2014
by dawnkinster 19 Comments

What’s to miss about running.

Once upon a time a long time ago I use to run. I was never fast but I got to the finish line. I used to train for races along with a group of women I’d met online, and then in person at races, and then in person just because they are really cool women. Then I got busy and I didn’t train as carefully as I should have and I tried to get ready for a half marathon having not run for awhile. I ran too much too soon and too far and I suffered a hairline fracture in my foot.

The wheelers get ready to start their race.

I knew as I was going the longer distances that something was wrong. I knew the morning of the race as I got up before light and packed the car with all the essentials, warm up clothes, clothes for after, water, food, extra socks, pins, number, that I shouldn’t be running this race. Still. I had trained for it. People were expecting me. It was an inaugural half marathon through a pretty part of the country.

I wanted to do it.

During the drive to the appointed meeting place I reached over in the dark to the stack of clothing on the other seat. I didn’t feel my race bib with it’s number, that I KNEW I had put on the top of the pile. I pulled into an empty parking lot and stopped under a light. I searched the car. No bib. I drove frantically home and searched the house. No bib.

It was a sign, I decided, that I wasn’t supposed to run this race. I called my friend and told her I wasn’t coming. Then I went back to bed.

And I never seriously ran again. It’s hard to start from scratch. It takes dedication and time and resolve. And I can’t seem to get out the door. It’s been years, the stress fracture is as healed as it’s going to be. I’ve gone to a foot specialist and purchased custom orthotics. I could do it.

Anticipation before the race.

I see runners when I’m driving to and from work, or when we’re on trips. Portland Maine seemed to be the capital of young athletic fit bodies running half dressed through the streets. All seem to float effortlessly. I become enamored again with the concept.

But I don’t float. I slog and running is not as romantic as I remembered.

Here they come!

This weekend I went up to Flint to see the start of the Crim Festival of Races. Ten thousand plus runners and their supporters were celebrating healthy activity, and the love of running. I felt the familiar twinge. No not in my foot; in my heart. I miss the sense of community running gave me. I could do that again, I thought to myself.

In order to run you just have to start.

Just start.

August 16, 2014
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

One last hour

If I could have one hour to spend with anyone, living or dead, I’d spend it with my mother.

I woke last night at 1:00 in the morning with that sentence running through my head. I slowed my thoughts down a bit and explored the concept. Was I sure it would be my mother? Out of all the people in the world, back through all eternity?

Yes, if it could only be one, than she was it.

I’d sit across a small table from her, out on a bluff above the ocean on a pretty spring day with seabirds floating on a breeze that made the grasses dance. I’d ask her questions. How long did it take you to grieve your mother; when did you start to feel better? When grandma died, so long after grandpa, did you feel like an orphan even though you were an adult? What’s heaven like anyway? Is dad there with you every day? Did you get to see your folks, and your own grandparents? Your brother? Can you really see us down here? All the time? Or just when we want you to, because sometimes I do stuff I’d rather you didn’t know about. What’s the secret ingredient in your potato salad?

I’d ask questions, but mostly I’d just sit and listen and look. I’d memorize her face and her voice, soak in the ‘momness’ of her. File it away to be taken out and examined later. And when the hour was gone saying goodbye would be excruciating. But no more excruciating than these past ten years have been, no more excruciating than the next ten will be. I’d hug her tight until she disappeared – until she became nothing but a wisp of sweet air.

And then I’d find myself hugging only me.

July 23, 2014
by dawnkinster 37 Comments

1500

I’ve been blogging a long time. Since September 2006. Some of you have actually read every entry, maybe even commented on most of them. Thank you for that, thank you if you’ve just read some of them.

The blog began when I quit my job and went back to school at age 50, working on a masters degree in Information Sciences, what used to be Library Science. I met a young man named Spike during my first semester. He was into technology and was putting together a host server. He asked me if I wanted to blog. I didn’t know what a blog was, but I like to write and I liked the idea of having a place to publish some thoughts. So he set me up.

It was kind of interesting and definitely fun to be back in school at my age with a bunch of 20 somethings. I felt both younger than my age and older, depending on the moment. I’d often forget I was so much older during discussions, but then someone would say something or do something and I’d realize I was old enough to be their parent. Perhaps their grandparent. In group projects I felt like their mother. I lent money to them to get home during stormy nights. I brought cake to the class with the snack break. I reminded them repeatedly that this or that assignment was not the end of the world, that there were bigger issues in real life. I told them often to enjoy the freedom that being in school affords. I luxuriated in that freedom myself, loving the public bus rides, the walks between classes, the work in public libraries where stories were always presenting themselves.

I especially like being in school at the university that both parents attended, graduated from, with most of my classes in the building my dad studied chemistry more than a half century previously. I liked walking the stairs he climbed. I said hello to them as I passed the house he grew up in. I thought about them when I wandered near the river.

So I wrote about school, and life, and my folks. And when I graduated in 2008 I wondered if maybe I should just close the blog down. After all, I was no longer an interesting student. I was back in real life and it wasn’t all that exciting. But I still liked to write, and I had a few readers, and while I tried to figure out what the blog was, it was still a place for me to put thoughts. To get support on life’s challenges. To offer my own support to others. To explore ideas. To play with the dog. To express sadness and joy sometimes in the same post.

1500 posts later I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And whether or not I will ever make a difference. And if any of it matters. Social media has changed. Now there’s Facebook and twitter and a whole lot more that I don’t even know about. And going into the future I suppose blogging will become even more old fashioned. On the other hand blogging allows people to express complex, more complete thoughts than Facebook or twitter. It slows people down for a bit longer, makes them think a bit more. It can be elegant. And thoughtful.

Or not.

So I’ve rambled enough. This post was supposed to be something significant, and here it is all nostalgic about my student life. But that was significant. And I’m glad I did it even though I didn’t get to work full time at a public library. I’m glad I did it for lots of reasons…

…one of which is because it led me to all of you.

May 24, 2014
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Forget me not

Forget Me Not

I spent some of this first day of the 3 day holiday weekend weeding. It’s the same old thing, by the time I get around to weeding the perennial garden it’s overrun with grass. I don’t even need to take a before picture – it looks the same as it did last year at this time. Think of a long green rectangle filled to overflowing with grass waving knee high. You would be accurate.

So what does a person think about when she’s pulling grass mindlessly for an hour or so? Well if you’re me, you think about your Dad. He’d have been 85 last February. I’d have liked to see him achieve that age, see what he was interested in, what he’d think about world events. I imagine him talking to the DOT about truck issues, can hear his impatience with the slowness that is Washington. I hear his encouragement to keep up the good fight.

I think about Mom too, of course. She loved her flowers and her birds. Though she didn’t die at the same time or in the same way as Dad, it sometimes feels like one event, their deaths happened so close together. I think about her when the oriole couple visit, or when I hear the cranes in the swamp up the road. And I think about her when I’m weeding.

This week while work was especially difficult I’d get up from my desk to stretch and glance out the window. Thursday and Friday almost every time I did a robin flew around the corner of the building and landed at the tip top of a tall spruce tree, about level with my window. It swayed in the breeze and chattered as I stood and watched and smiled. Eventually I’d get back to work and when I’d glance out in a bit the bird was gone. But it was back three or four times when I’d stand up to stretch, and the last time it stared in my direction while it chattered. I know the windows are glazed and the bird can’t really see me. And the bird couldn’t know that I needed that little bit of entertainment during a very bad day. But each time that robin turned up I’d said “hi” to Mom, and before I sat down again I’d say a silent “bye, see you next time.”

So I’ve been thinking about the two of them a lot these past few days. That’s not a bad thing, I’ve sort of enjoyed it. Especially during these beautiful spring days when I’m pulling weeds in my garden and they’re both just a memory away.

Broken hearts

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: memories