To Melody, with love...

I remember how you used to come over to Penyrn.
We could barely talk and we’d still play for hours
“Pretend we have all the diseases in the world,” we would say,
our minds barely able to grasp the concept of real illness
and what it meant.
I would wear your glasses and be “Lauren” and you

would be “Lynn” and we would make Courtney

run around and get us toys and drinks.

I remember how you would sleep on our floor

by the closet, and every time you moved it seemed

like the lace curtain would fall down on your head!

Then Grandma got sick for real, but all we really knew was that

we got to come over to Gap every day and jump on

the trampoline together.
We were Jon-Jumping-Jack-o’-Lantern and then

we were Dalmatians performing at dog shows.
Remember how we made cakes and jellies for “Mrs. Bedbad”?
Or the “Geoffrey-jelly”?  That was our specialty!
But Grandma just got worse and we started to realize
that something serious was happening.
I remember how we would color pictures to make her smile

and then go upstairs to their old bedroom and try to

have meetings and make ourselves cry.

I don’t remember what happened after she died
--- did we talk about it? ---
I only remember how we would stay up late and talk about

the book of Revelations and compose stories in our heads
like “Once in a Pan of Dishsoap” or “A Flash in the Darkest Meadow”.
We played The Three Thieves and then we were Peter,
Donnie, and Randy and their obnoxious brothers,

like Greegog and Hankie.

I remember when you would come over to Elm
and we would do endless cooking shows.
Courtney would cry over her “unhealthy” peanut butter sandwiches

while we pretended to both speak the same nonsense language
and leave her out.
I remember how we got in trouble for doing that and had
to weed the strawberry patch after reading rest time.

Remember how we walked down the lane to return
Mr. Blahah’s strawberry basket?  We stopped to eat some

blackberries and then we picked wildflowers

to lay in the basket.

The next day was the 4^th of July and we all had

poison ivy from scrounging around in the weeds like that.
We all sat on a big deck chair on the porch at Gap,

drinking rootbeer floats and scratching ourselves to death

while we watched the rain fall.

Remember how we used to play school and argue about
who was going to be the teacher?
And that show we did for Grandpa in the play area?

We were soldiers and you were wounded in battle.

I took you into the

“hospital” and poured some “medicine” on your arm.
The next year, pokeberries and marigolds grew

where it fell through the mulch.

Remember how we made up stories about the Groundhog Woods
and repeated them until we actually believed them

and were scared to death?

Then we moved to Virginia, which was OK with us,

because when you came to visit,
it was always for a couple weeks at a time.
We slaved away at “SP” -----
and while Court added the finishing touches

on her teepee, you were sturdying your barricade
with thorns and rotten wood and sticks that kept blowing down,

and I was cooking my endless dinners
or working on the cabin that never did get finished.

Remember all the trails we hiked back then?  The names we carved on trees
and the wine berries we picked and made into jam?
I remember playing truth or dare and watching you walk all the

way up the hill to the barn to kiss the garage door on

that day we came back from Fairystone Beach all sun-burnt

and worn out from our dares, and way too many slushies and Skittles.

Remember how Mrs. Ost used to shake our hands?

And the hats we made for Vacation Bible School?
We would watch The Row fill up at church and laugh at
PJ’s new dye job.
Can you believe it’s been four years since Joey died?

Remember listening to “Holiness” way into the wee

hours of the night and making rash trades with our

dollhouse furniture, then crying when we couldn’t get

our stuff back?
Remember those ‘behavior’ charts we made that one summer?
We all got prizes even though we didn’t

slightly deserve them!

We would swim in the pond for hours in those days...

until you were bitten by that water snake.
Nobody believed us – probably not even ‘til this day –

but at least we can all still agree that we saw it!

Remember how you came to visit the week before we moved to Maryland?
We hiked up to our special tree and looked at all the names

we’d carved on it throughout the years.
We remembered all the pictures we’d taken and how

Courtney spilled her blue Kool-aid into her bag of lunch that one day

and ruined her watch.
We thought about how we didn’t want the

next people to ever find our tree.

Before we went back to the house, we jumped on it.
You walked up the highest part where it’d almost snapped, and jumped,

while I jumped in the middle,

and Courtney watched from a safe distance.

Remember how we bought Providence Rd.?
You said you missed Rustic Ridge more than we did that day!
We would sit in Courtney’s room around the tape player,

talking about current events and

acting like complete idiots: making things up for our tapes and
laughing, because it didn’t really matter.

Remember when you graduated?
We made that scrapbook and tried to fit all these things

into it.  We realized it would never work and so we called it
“Volume 1” and promised to make another
one after you got married.
 We spent the next day singing “May the Words of My Mouth”

and making the curry and rice that wasn’t ready until almost 10 PM.
Remember the crazy pictures we took in the kitchen that day?
When I made all those pancakes and

we got out the ketchup and fake flowers and

played around with my tripod?

And remember the next year when Ethan died?  How you would come over
almost every night and sit on the counter with your Runts

while we talked about every subject imaginable?  How many times

we watched Countdown or talked about Smith and Jones?
Remember when we tried on those wedding dresses
and went to Borders and you guys laughed

at me because I was wearing flip-flops in February just

because the sun had come out for once?

Courtney graduated that spring and you came over for the whole weekend.
Remember how I stressed out over my fruit topiaries, and

barely changed out of my penguin pajama pants
before the guests began to arrive?
And remember that morning we went to Faith Southern and

had to sing, “Morning has Broken” for the first time?  Remember how

we laughed until we almost choked?

I remember the first time you saw The Ivanhoe.  We spent the whole

trip down listening to music and laughing.

We ate my leftover scones and sour cream
chocolate-chip muffins and you didn’t know what to do

with the muffin paper, so you ate it!
We listened to Smitty and sang along with “Cross of Gold”

just like we did in the ‘old days’...

We spent that week hacking away at ancient bricks and painting walls and

injuring ourselves at every turn.  Remember all the band-aids

and hydrogen-peroxide we used up?
And that cat we tried to befriend with the crackers
from the MRE packages?

On the trip home, we all brushed our hair
out the window and played around and took pictures

and wished that we didn’t have to go back

to our respective life’s duties –

that we could keep laughing and being crazy together.
Those visits were all too short.

You came to visit again, though – many times – and we did the Peddler and

and made way too many trips out to Hardees and the “Chinese Store”.
Remember how we watched The Lake House
and started a pillow fight at 2:30 AM because we were so
“gullible”?!

How did it all go by so fast?  It seems like one day

we were hiding our mushrooms under the Stockin’s

tablecloth or jumping on Aunt Susie’s bed,
or hiking through the woods without a care,

and the next, we were worrying about car repairs

and college payments and deadlines and

how to know if he was The One.

Where did it all go?

Maybe we should add that to our list of the imponderables
(or maybe leave it up to Smith and Jones to decipher!)
I don’t know--
but I do know that I’m looking forward to the future...

Thanks for being a part of it!!

 

...I really am a lousy Xanga-er!

Well, Happy New Year's Eve everybody... I guess I won't write again until next year! 

How did you guys celebrate, if you did?

P.S.  If you ever get the chance to listen to that FFH CD, listen to track #1: "You Are God Alone".  You can find it on www.MySpace.com/FFHworship.  Really good song!

...and I can't because the feature is temporarily disabled.  I had to laugh about that!  I'd been planning this picture-posting-outing for quite some time.  Well, maybe next time!