~ Piper showed up wearing a flow-y pink top with scattered sequins across the front. So pretty and bohemian. She nearly knocked me over hugging me and charged at MB in exactly the same way. He handles it better, having that, oh, extra foot of height on me.
~ At brunch Piper planted herself next to MB and they chatted throughout the meal, in their own little world. I sat across from them with my sister and watched. It was just so cute. At one point, Uncle Beloved had his arm casually flung across the back of Piper’s chair, his hand dangling above her shoulder, and she turned and started giving him little smacking kisses on his hand and fingers. She adores her Uncle Beloved and he is so good with her. Not that it’s hard to be good to that kid.
~ She is polite. “May I have another Sierra Mist, please?” Give that girl anything resembling Sprite and she is ha-ha-happy. As we left, she thanked the hostess at the door. The girl, totally startled, smiled and said a huge, “Oh! You’re welcome, sweetie!”
~ At one point during brunch, my dad said to me from across the table, “Hey! Did you see Fireproof ?” Without thinking — a huge, recurring problem for me — and breaking my self-imposed rule never to render an opinion on movies with my family because we agree on absolutely nothing, I said, “Oh! That was SO BAAAD!” As the word BAAAD was flying out of my mouth, three things happened simultaneously: My dad’s eager expression wavered the teeniest bit, I dropped my face to my plate in shame, and MB kicked me swiftly and hard under the table. I deserved it. My family can’t handle my opinions on these issues and I should know better. I do know better.
~ Although, I’m sorry. Fireproof really IS bad. Empirically bad. I’m right. And, honestly, I have to question the aesthetic sense of anyone who liked it. I do. For those who don’t know: Fireproof is “Christian” movie starring Kirk Cameron — the only guy you can get to star in “Christian” movies — about saving a troubled marriage, making it “fireproof” because Cameron’s character is a — wait! — FIREMAN. Hahahahaha. Jesus loves subtlety! There’s a whole post I could write about this movie and “Christian” movies in general, blah blah. But, look. Just because it’s “Christian” doesn’t make it GOOD. Embracing Jesus as my savior does not include embracing Kirk Cameron as an actor worth watching or, frankly, that would be a dealbreaker for me.
~ Piper’s whole family was wearing these cool macrame’d (how would you type that??) bracelets they’d made. I covet them. Did they bring me one? No, they did not. They allowed me to try one on and then give it back to them. Wieners.
~ I like to embarrass my younger nephew by inquiring about the state of his abs. He’s quite the basketball star these days. Fourteen and taller than I am. Has been for a couple of years now. So now, we hug and I step back and say, “Okay. Lemme see ’em.” And he smiles, blushes a teeny bit, before pulling up his shirt because he knows he can’t get out of it. I am relentless on this. Plus, he’s proud of his emerging six-pack and I feel it’s my duty as his aunt to both tease and encourage him. Keep him on his toes so he never knows which one he’s getting from me next, you know?
~ I like to hug-punch my six-foot-one-inch older nephew just because I’m bitter that he’s so grown up. And because he wouldn’t give me his bracelet. Wiener.
~ The nephews and I bonded over our love of Converse All-Stars. I told them I had a pair of black ones that were about 15 years old and they thought this was extremely cool. You know, I have to say it pains me a bit to think that I have to re-educate these teenagers on their aunt’s intrinsic coolness. Hahahahaha. Kid, when you were five, you thought I hung the moon. And I’m still cool! You’re just in a weird phase.
~ There were no Banshees on Easter this year; they were visiting the other side of their family. (The half that doesn’t have me. They could not possibly have had any fun.)
~ Also at brunch, we had a conversation about old family names. Grandpa’s middle name, great aunt so-and-so’s name, that kind of stuff. My favorite family name — that I’d never heard before, ever, and I can’t believe it — was my maternal great grandmother:
Ernestina Wilhelmina. I kid you not. Doesn’t she sound like a character in a children’s book? Ernestina Wilhelmina. I’m writing the book now, I swear. I am in love with this name. I never met Ernestina Wilhelmina, but how can you NOT be a character with that name?
~ My grandpa had a brother named Mello. Pronounced “Meelo.” Which bummed me out a little bit. Pronounce it “mellow”! Come ON! Pippa! I had a great uncle MELLOW! And that’s how I shall refer to him from now on.
~ Back at my parents’ after brunch, after we climbed out of the car and Piper greeted us — again — she and I walked towards the house, hand in hand. Glancing down, I spied a plastic purple Easter egg hidden in the base of the agapanthus bush. Psssssst, I hissed, psssssssssssst, trying to be casual. I waved my index finger down at it as we walked past and Piper giggled with glee.
~ Moments later, I found out that part of the yard was part of the adults’ egg hunt. Piper squealed out at me, “Don’t forget that purple one, Tee Tee!” Hahahaha. Thanks for the help, kiddo.
~ After our hunt, Dad, Older Nephew, Sister, and I gathered ’round the kitchen table while Dad tried to explain to us how to play Settlers of Catan. “We played it a while back with so-and-so ….. I think that …… well, hmmmm ….” He was a bit confounded. Mom walked by. “Oh, THAT game,” she said and kept walking. “Honey, do you remember ….” “No! That game takes forever.” Hahahaha. She wanted nothing to do with it and went off to play Old Maid with Pipey instead. Basically, this Settlers of Catan — it’s medieval Monopoly. Or something. I think. I don’t know. It looks cool. It looks like it might be fun. There are sheep and logs and settlements and ore. And I mean, who doesn’t like that stuff?? Ore, pippa! Yesteryear! Poor Dad, who is usually The Champion of every game we ever play, spent 53 years explaining it until I said, “I can see why this game takes a long time.” “I know!” he said, rolling his eyes. “It just didn’t stick with me, I guess.” Finally, we just began to play our own improvised version that mostly involved protecting ourselves from that despot, Older Nephew. As the game went on, my exasperated sister kept giving us her personal endurance countdown: “I am done with this game in 20 minutes ….. I am done in 12 minutes ….. only 7 minutes left for me ….. three minutes …. okay! I’m done now!” And she got up and walked away. She wasn’t kidding. She left her sheep and logs and settlements and ore. Even her ORE, pippa! ORRRE! Trying to settle Catan had left her utterly spent. Moments later, I actually bartered something with my nephew that I knew would enable him to win the game. It WAS fun, but not necessarily because of the game itself.
~ A few hours later, after my sister’s family had left to beat the Easter traffic, we sat with my parents in the living room, under the skylight, and just chatted. I’m proud of myself, in a small way, because things with my parents have been so difficult — mostly mom — and I’m trying, really trying, to behave as if there’s a clean slate between us. It’s hard if you’ve had a parent ill for 25 years. If that parent has a history of being emotionally abusive. The wounds are deep. Things have been said and done that, now that she’s in a slightly improved condition, she doesn’t seem to remember or doesn’t want to remember. Maybe you want to say something or have it out, but you stop short. What’s the point? She won’t remember. The wounds are for God now, I think. So I’m asking Him for more grace, for the ability to see her with completely different eyes, and He’s really doing that for me. I see her frailty more. I see how she was abused and how she tried, she did try, to do her best with us. I see her humor more now — now that she’s doing a bit better.
But it’s always tenuous. She’s been “better” many times before, only to relapse into …. whatever it is …. so there’s that tightrope the entire family walks and has walked for a quarter century now. She’s softer these days, but I don’t know how long it will last. Still, for the first time in years, I feel like I can see love for me in my mother’s eyes. My parents love me, but they are just bound up inside. Not demonstrative. Legalistic. I must be hard for them — their dramatic expressive free-spirited daughter. I really must be hard for them to take in some ways. I’m trying to embrace — well, no — understand that more. So it was surprising and nice, really nice, just to sit in my favorite rocking chair, watch the tips of the pine trees sway in the frame of the skylight, and talk with my husband and my parents. We talked about current affairs, being afraid, their childhoods, my childhood. Anything that came to us, I guess, as we each rambled around in our own heads. I literally felt grace hanging in the air. Healing things. While we chatted, I made a conscious effort to remember goodness, to mention creative things my mom had done as a mother, to esteem her out loud for those things. That doesn’t change that there are huge needy gaps I have inside me. There were bad things, scarring things, said and done when I was growing up, but I realize more and more that my mom was terribly scarred. More scarred, really, than I. She was needy, too. She is needy. We are all needy. Don’t you know, dear pippa, that that’s what heaven is for? That that’s what Jesus is ultimately about? That that’s why he died and rose again? To someday make everything right. To fill in all our gaps. To free all our bound places. To make us whole.
Finally.
