A Night in the Box

Less of a conversation and more of a quote...

"This sun screen smells like the beach."

We sang one of Nathan's favorite songs in church today. It is a beautiful, triumphant song and I cry every time we sing it, especially when Susan's choir has their soloist for it. I love the song. And I hate the song. I always think that "this time I'm going to get through it" and I sing along with my terrible voice drowned out by the choir and congregation. Inevitably when we get to the chorus where the song rises to its most triumphant peaks I tear up and my voice breaks and I just listen on through the rest.

It is a blessing that the song brings such powerful memories. At its most potent I can see him standing next to me with a huge smile clapping along almost to the rhythm and I can feel a bit of the closeness that was there when he and I worshiped in church together. I don't think that such experiences can be explained. It is paradoxical that I can be so thankful for such powerful memories of him and at the same time, because of the same experience and memories feel such pain.

And then the day goes on like any other day.

Susan and Lauren were talking about birthdays. I can't recall the exact context, but it is a pretty frequent conversation to talk about who has the next upcoming birthday and what the dates are. Susan was telling Lauren the birthdays of our family members and Lauren was confused by Susan indicating that Nathan still had a birthday. She asked, "When is his un-birthday?".

One of the first lessons of parenthood for me was how quickly and how well children can communicate. It might not matter if they can come up with the right words at the right time, but they find a way to say or ask what they want to say.

And as for the rest of the conversation, Susan answered matter of factly. And I think we may have even chuckled a bit about the wording. Then Susan told me that the exchange should make its way into a "conversation"...so here it is.

I ran into a girl from Nathan's first grade class at a school event last night. Couldn't help to form a picture in my mind of how he might look finishing up the third grade.

I'm not sure how Susan goes there every week to help in Julia's class. I hate being in that school.