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Happily Ever After

Posted on July 27, 2016 Written by Tonya

This is a very exciting time in our family and most definitely in my sister’s life.

It has been months of preparation, list creating and guest building, taste testing and over analyzing, decision making and expenses and much celebration.

One month from today my little sister is getting married!

Because our parents are both deceased, I have been given the distinct honor of walking Leah down the aisle.

She chose me to give her away.

I don’t know if I can do it.

I’m honored. And there is no one else. Really.

It should be my job, but this is a position I never dreamed I’d have and one I know she never thought she have to ask me to take.

Just as most little girls daydream, it should be our father by her side. Not her older sister.

The Father of the Bride is an iconic role and such a huge part of a wedding.

How can I measure up? How can I channel my father and bestow his wisdom on life and love onto my sister and her new husband? How can I be a substitute for the greatest man either of us have ever known? How can I be equal parts serious and witty like he so effortlessly could? How do I keep from crumbling in what is sure to be a pivotal moment in my life?

I am already starting to use visualization techniques to make through what is going to be an incredibly emotional day.

This will mark yet another milestone event that my parents will miss.

One month from today Leah will say “I do” in front of all of the most important people in her and her finance’s life and the two people that are meant to be there the most, won’t be.

And yet, like we have for the past almost nine years, we will endure.

We will muddle through. We will cry and muster our bravest faces. We will get through the days leading up to this monumental day, my sister’s wedding day, and all the days after.

Happily ever after.

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The Last Email

Posted on December 29, 2015 Written by Tonya

My In Box is always a disaster.

Several years ago, in an effort to help out Mother Nature, I sat with a enormous pile of paper catalogs and called each and every company and asked them to remove me from their snail mail list and send me e-mails instead. I’m now on all of their email lists.

Each morning I easily wake up to 50+ e-mails. Most of them I delete right away, others I save to read later in folders I have painstakingly made over the years, occasionally I am sent something that truly requires my attention or captures my interest or I’ll need for a later date.

I receive daily parenting tips and a quote of the day, my husband’s travel itineraries, notifications from my son’s school and his teacher, new blog post alerts from my favorite writers, notes pertaining to Avery and Austin and committees I am on, and tips and tricks from social media marketing experts to help me do my job more efficiently. Rarely there will be a note from a friend, but most reach out through Facebook nowadays. I try to be good about filing and organizing but sometimes I get behind. Way behind!

Case and point:

Needless to say, my In Box causes me a lot of anxiety.

I always found comfort knowing if I scrolled all the way down to the very bottom, there was the last email my father ever sent me.

The subject line is: sox and addresses and it is dated Thursday, October 11, 2007.

The Boston Red Sox were in the playoffs that year (they went on to win the World Series) and because of where my parents lived and worked at the time, in Tunis, Tunisia, they were unable to watch the games live so Todd and I recorded them and mailed them. Not the same as watching the games live as they were happening, but for a die hard Red Sox fan, my father was very appreciative. His message reflected that. He also shared that he and my mother had notified the school board that the 2007-08 school year would be their last in Tunis. Come June, they would be moving stateside!

He and my mother died four days after he sent the email.

The email itself is totally mundane but it meant a lot to me to see it at the bottom of my In Box and I loved knowing it was there.

Recently (sometime before December 15 to be exact), Lola had my phone and has savvy as I believe she already is with electronics, somehow she managed to delete every e-mail in my In Box. Not a big deal when I discovered it because I just moved all of the e-mails from the trash back to the In Box to sort through later.

Unfortunately, the transfer didn’t happen and all the emails remained in my trash folder.

Unbeknownst to me, I deleted my trash the next time I was on my lap top.

I am devastated over this realization. I lost several important items, most important, my dad’s e-mail.

I’m also grateful Todd made a PDF of dad’s last email a few ago when I thought I had accidentally deleted it. It’s not the same, but at least I have it.

This year I lost two things that deeply connected me to my parents, in July it was a pair of treasured earrings that were my mothers. I wore them almost daily and can’t go in to details without feeling sick over it and now this e-mail. I can’t help but wonder if these are signs. Signs of growth and peace. Or perhaps a way for the universe to see how I would respond.

Whatever it is, the losses hurt.

Now and always.

10 Things My Parents Did Right

Posted on March 23, 2015 Written by Tonya

It’s easy to hold my parents up on a very high pedestal since they are no longer living, but they really were good people. Warm and funny and able to talk to anyone. They dedicated their lives to educating children all over the world and always made me feel special. They did a lot of things wrong but they also did a lot of things right.

10 Things My Parents Taught Me:

1. How to be a good friend.
My parents taught me how to be a good friend, trustworthy and honest and always have a strong moral compass. They showed me the importance of sticking up for the underdog while treating everyone with kindness and respect. They also taught me to practice hospitality. The door to our house was always open and my family loved to entertain guests and made anyone who entered our home feel comfortable.

2. A love of reading.
My parents instilled a love of reading in me early in life. The walls of our home were lined with books, my first word was “book” and I remember getting my first library card at the age of five.

3. Respect for myself.
A small example of this would be that a boy should never honk the horn and expect me to come running out to his car, he should get out, walk up to the door and greet my parents. This only happened to me once.

4. How to have fun.
I was taught that there is a time for work, a time for play, and maybe even a time for both.

5. Compassion for my fellowman.
My parents gave when they were able and taught me that I should always show mercy and kindness towards other people and treat them in a way that I want to be treated.

6. A love of school and learning.
My parents taught me to value education and to excel in school. Maybe because they were educators themselves, but I have always loved school and hold a very special place in my heart for teachers.

7. A love of travel.
My parents decided to work and live overseas when I was seven-years-old and we never looked back. Their career spanned almost 30 years in seven different countries, many of them third world. My childhood was spent in four different countries and seeing so many different cultures was an amazing way to grow up. I have had the “travel bug” forever and continue to enjoy long journeys to far away places in large part due to my mom and dad’s adventurous spirit.

8. Argue in private.
I can’t even count on one hand the number of arguments I witnessed my parents having, although I’m sure they did. They weren’t perfect but to my knowledge they kept that side of their marriage separate from me.

9. The art of conversation.
I swear my mom and dad could talk to anyone! They always expressed an interest in my friends and it was important to them to get to know them, even some of the unfavorable boys I dated. My father was particularly comfortable with strangers and curious about where the people he met came from and what made them tick.

10. They let me go when I was ready to leave.
As a mother myself, this must be the hardest parenting task there is. And also the most critical. My mom and dad did it beautifully and continued to love me unconditionally and support the decisions I made as an adult.

I miss my parents everyday and wish so much that they could see me as a mother. I wish I could turn to them for parenting advice. I draw on how I was raised to raise my children and I can only hope that I am doing it right.

What did your parents do right?

Small Treasures

Posted on March 11, 2015 Written by Tonya

Lucas asked quietly and consciously to look through my jewelry box. I’ll never forget how surprised he was when I said yes.

We sat on the floor of my closet and carefully went through each drawer and compartment. I let him handle items as I explained where I got them or who gave them to me. He listened intently.

The sapphire and diamond earrings and necklace set my parents gave me were my something blue in my [first] wedding.

A Claddagh ring from an old boyfriend.

The white tassel from my cap bearing a 96 for the year I graduated from college.

The first birthday present his father gave me after we started dating; a necklace with an engraved pendant that reads: I call for your abundance like an armor of ships.

A cameo brooch pin that belonged to my grandmother.

A metal bracelet I bought from a street vendor on the beach in Cabo.

Various bangles and baubles, odd rings I never wear, tarnished earrings, a strand of pearls, turquoise, coral, shell and gunmetal necklaces, a pair of delicate silver hoops that were my mother’s, several items from Stella and Dot (my latest jewelry obsession), the tiny silver spoon, which was a gift from our beloved fertility doctor when I graduated from her office to my regular OB, monogrammed charms, stray fortunes from fortune cookies and other gifts from family and friends.

Lucas was focused as he tried on bracelets and slipped necklaces around his neck.

You never wear this.
Oh, I like this one, it sparkles!
Doesn’t Aunt Leah have this too?
This is so pretty.

It wasn’t until we got to the satin navy blue jewelry travel bag in the bottom drawer that I realized this may have been a mistake.

Inside the bag is a smaller red pouch that I keep the jewelry my parents were wearing when they died; their wedding bands, my mother’s engagement ring, my father’s college class ring, my mother’s gold necklace, bracelet and two other rings and my father’s Mickey Mouse watch, whose long white-gloved hands are frozen at 10:03. The band still very faintly smells of him.

I remained composed as I showed Lucas each piece and answered his questions.

Why do have these, Mommy?
How did you get them?
Will you ever wear these?
Will Daddy?
Your dad had big fingers.

I thought there was nothing of real value in my jewelry box, just a bunch of costume jewelry and certainly nothing that a five-year-old boy would find interesting. I was wrong and now to both of us, it is full of memories, stories and small treasures.

10 Years Ago

Posted on January 15, 2015 Written by Tonya

This photograph was taken almost 10 years ago in Nabeul, one of Tunis’s major ceramic centers. I was 32 years old.

April 22, 2005

Todd and I were visiting my parents, who lived in Tunisia at the time. My father was the elementary principal and my mother taught third grade at the American international school.

They played great hosts by taking us to see some beautiful places near their home. Looking through the photos from our trip, I am also reminded of our visit to El-Jem, known for it’s ancient Colosseum, sheep blocking roads (no trip to Africa would be complete without it) and our stay at the gorgeous African Jade hotel in Korba. The indoor/outdoor lobby was covered in vines. One of my favorite photos of me and father was taken in that lobby.

April 23, 2005

I also received one of the best massages I’ve ever had at the hotel spa.

Although our visit was memorable, I left unsettled. My parents seemed unhappy and stressed. They seemed happy that we were there, but preoccupied. The director my father was working for and with at the time was difficult and dropping the ball, leaving him to pick up the pieces. As I recall, it was his last year at the school and things did get better the following year.

When this photo was taken, Todd and I never thought we would return to Tunis two years later to remove the contents of my parents house or attend a memorial service given in their honor at the school.

When this photo was taken, Todd and I were two years from getting married and four from becoming parents.

A lot can happen in a year, but a lifetime can occur in 10 years!

My parents are no longer with us and my life looks much different today, so much loss and yet so much gain.

This is me today.

You can’t see it, but I’m wearing the same necklace I was wearing 10 years ago, a Raphael angel that I cling to in times of worry or unease.

My children have my father’s eyes.

November 29, 2014

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop, Prompt 1. Find a photo of yourself taken 10 years ago and display it on your blog along with a current photo. How have you changed since the day that photo was taken?

Family Tree

Posted on November 18, 2014 Written by Tonya

Just like I knew they would, my eyes fill with tears as I tell Lucas the photos we are carefully pasting to the page are the last ones taken of my parents. It was my wedding day, seven years ago.

I thought we’d have a couple more years before Lucas had a Family Tree project.

It’s basic, immediate family only, no research required and a few fun questions about our family including, who is the oldest member of our family and who has the longest eyelashes.

I’m worried.

Lucas has been known to tell complete strangers that my parents are dead. Just like that, he’ll blurt out to anyone who’ll listen, “My mom’s parents are dead.” It was shocking the first couple of times but, I expect it now. I’m ready when the cashier at the supermarket looks at me with a blank stare on her face unsure what to say next. “It’s okay.” I say. Of course, it’s anything but okay, but she doesn’t want to hear a sob story and I’m just trying to buy dinner.

Death is a regular topic in our home. I have shared here before the many conversations we have had as a family, the questions my five-year-old so inquisitively asks and the delicate way in which we attempt to ease his precious heart and mind by responding the best way we know how, with the truth.

For us, it is normal. I realize this is not the case in other homes and assume most of his classmates have two sets of living grandparents, maybe more.

Lucas only has one set of grandparents and they are kind and loving and a very big part of our lives. I am grateful for them every day.

I could argue that my parents are a big part of our lives too, as they come up in regular conversation, there are lots of photos of them in our house and many stories and memories to share. But are my parents no longer my children’s grandparents because they are not here physically or because they never had the chance to meet my children? We refer to them as Grandma and Grandpa Adams. In my mind that’s what they are. Right? I don’t have the answers. All I know is, their lives were cut short and were they here, they’d love Lucas and Lola to pieces.

I’m not worried about what Lucas will say when it is his turn to present his family to his class, he’ll no doubt share what details he knows, however, I am concerned about how the other children may respond.

I gave Lucas’s teacher a head’s up and she was grateful and reassured me that no two families are alike and that she would create a sensitive environment for whatever the children what to discuss.

Especially In October

Posted on October 7, 2014 Written by Tonya

An audible groan escapes my body as I turn the page on the calendar.

You’d never know it was Fall in Southern California based on the heat we have been experiencing. That coupled with the heavy emotion that accompanies October, it is has become my least favorite month of the year.

The anniversary of my parents deaths always evokes powerful memories of the feelings and events surrounding the early morning hours of October 15, 2007 and the days that followed. I can recall in great detail where I was, what I was doing and even what I was wearing the night my sister called to tell me they had died. Although I have never worn them again, I still own those pajamas. I can’t seem to part with them.

I remember being grateful for all the tasks at hand so that I wouldn’t just sit and cry. There were many scheduled overseas phone calls, the repatriation of my parents bodies, obtaining toxicology reports and death certificates. Not only did I feel like I was in the middle of my worst nightmare, but the pages of a crime novel.

We had to locate their will to ensure their wishes were met, contact and meet with a funeral home, write two obituaries, read through countless condolence e-mails and field questions from family and friends. There was so much to do and I had never felt that level of exhaustion before.

I also remember waking up for days with tear stained cheeks and also not really being able to look anyone in the eye for fear of completely losing it.

Seven years later, it is still hard to speak of my mom and dad in the past tense. There are things about them that have grown fuzzy and many I’ll never forget. Bittersweet memories have become part of my life, they are woven into the very marrow of my being and the sadness is permanent and irrevocable.

I’m grateful it is not the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning anymore. And yet, at least a dozen times a day it crosses my mind. More so in October.

I find ways of working them into conversations as I attempt to hold on to them and to help my son know them as I did. Of course, I realize that will be my lifelong struggle. And now that I’m a parent, I wonder if I ever really knew them myself. I always miss them.

Grief gets better, more manageable over time. I have learned to live with it as it comes and goes and I know the path toward healing and finding peace is a long one.

Especially in October.

45

Posted on August 23, 2014 Written by Tonya

It’s hard to imagine my parents ever dating. Of course they did long before I existed and while I was growing up too, but I only recall babysitters not the two of them going out for the evening.

I can’t help but wonder if we’d be at their favorite restaurant tonight dining all together as a family or would my father insist on a having a “cook out” and inviting a few friends over too. Just bring yourself, he’d say when asked what could be contributed to the gathering.

Maybe with the help of me or my sister, my father would have made reservations at a hip new eatery. He’d hate every minute of the meal but would go through it with smile on his face and rise to leave as soon as the check was paid. My dad did not enjoy the restaurant dining experience in the least bit. He liked being at home and was always ready for the next thing so it left him antsy in restaurants.

I’m certain my dad would have enlisted help picking out a piece of sapphire jewelry, the classic gift given on this occasion. My mother would opt for a silly over sentimental gift for him and card that said it all because she was unable.

I bet my sister and I would have gone in on a gift together for them. For their 25th anniversary we presented them with an engraved decorative pewter plate we bought at Things Remembered. We’d have to do better than that, it has been another 20 years. A trip maybe? I always dreamed of sending them on a cruise. Why I have no idea, especially since my mother had severe motion sickness and my dad’s need for his own space.

I wish I had known my parents without children, just them, as a couple. I regret not asking them more about their early years together. I want to hear again how they met, when exactly they knew they had found The One and after all these years together, what makes their marriage work and has there ever been a time when one of them wanted to walk away. I’d like to thank them for being such great marriage role models, sticking together, sticking it out.

If they were alive, my parents would be celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary today.

I hope wherever they are, they are kissing and cuddling and toasting one another as I’ll be.

Be Here

Posted on January 28, 2014 Written by Tonya

I study photographs of him and will them to come to life.

Just one more conversation.

Meet my son.

Put your hand on my belly and feel your granddaughter.

Share a beer and a laugh with your son-in-law.

Be here.

My father would have been 67 today.

I can’t believe he (and my mother) have been gone almost seven years.

Does it ever really sink in?

Does the hurt ever stop?

Michael Stephen Adams 1947-2007

Baby girl is due tomorrow but could have been delivered today.

It was almost a guarantee.

For over a week she was breech and my OB was trying to talk me into having an ECV (External Cephalic Version), a procedure done at the hospital where she and a nurse manually (from the outside) try to flip the baby. My OB said the procedure is only successful half the time and the other half leads to labor, hence the reason it’s done at hospital. It can be very painful and must be done within the 37 and 38th weeks of pregnancy.

I opted not to have the procedure and instead sought help from a chiropractor trained in the Webster technique, involving assessing and correcting any misalignments in the pelvic and low back area helping to keep the ligaments and muscles, which support the uterus, relaxed. I also saw my acupuncturist and performed yoga type movements twice a day and used visualization to move her on my own.

Just to be safe, however, my OB wanted me to schedule a C-section. The VERY last way I wanted to deliver this baby (you can read about my birth plan here)!!

When discussing dates, she said the earliest she could do one would be January 28. I was taken aback to say the least. Knowing my due date is January 29, I always known that it was a possibility that my father and daughter could share a birthday, but I really wanted her to have her own special day. When my OB came up with the date solely based on surgery room availability and her own personal schedule and knowing nothing about the significance to my family, I thought it might be meant to be. My father was my hero and I miss him every day and what better way to pay homage to him than having his granddaughter on his birthday.

A week after making the appointment, baby girl flipped and has been head down ever since! I am equal parts relieved and melancholy. The day is still young, so anything can happen, but with the 7:45 AM C-section canceled, I can’t help but be curious to see if she will choose today to be here.

Stamp Collecting

Posted on December 20, 2013 Written by Tonya

I can picture him now, plain white undershirt and khaki pants, cross legged on the carpet in front of the TV in our living room. Sometimes there would a card table set up and he’d be sitting in a metal folding chair. Either way it always looked completely uncomfortable to me, but I knew this was how he relaxed. He was in his happy place studying stamps, organizing stamps, categorizing stamps. He’d spend hours “playing with his stamps, as we would affectionately call his favorite activity.

There would be a magnifying glass in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other. Occasionally he would call me over and say, “you have to see this, isn’t it beautiful?” I’d roll my eyes and nod in agreement, “sure is Dad.”

My father had dozens of binders of stamps he had collected from all over the world. They filled the entire closet in his study. He acquired them in all different ways; personally living or visiting the countries of origin, giving money to friends he knew would be somewhere he hadn’t with a request and even ripping them right off envelopes from letters anyone in our family received.

He was a member of several philatelic clubs and his specialty was collecting stamp on stamps, a stamp depicting a stamp.

As one of the world’s most popular hobbies, I never really understood stamp collecting but I certainly can now appreciate how lovely they can be and I’m so happy my dad had this activity.

My sister and I sold the majority of his collection when he and our mother died. Although he had it insured for several thousands of dollars, it wasn’t worth very much. We kept all of his US postage stamps and I haven’t had to purchase a stamp in the last six years because he had that many!

If you received a holiday card from us then you also received a couple of stamps that my dad collected. I always enjoy flipping through the historic figures, trains, planes, automobiles, endangered species, sports, Olympics, Americana, pop culture, Disney, music legends, athletes, cartoon characters, world events, PSAs, celebrities, tiny insects, gargantuan dinosaurs, shaped stamps, unusual rarities, new stamps, old stamps and everything in between! There’s always a twinge of guilt and I wonder how he’d feel about my actually using them.

My only wish now is knowing how his passion for stamp collecting evolved. I suppose his love of history and curious nature played a large part. I’d think he’d want us to use them and I know he’d love that I am saving some that just seem more special than others for Lucas. Maybe he’ll take after his grandfather…

Happily Ever After

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What I Write About