The life and times of a little hippie in the Bersagel-Briese clan.
My Dad and I spent two days late last year going through my Great-Uncle Bob’s fire museum in Woodbine, Georgia. He passed away a couple of months prior and left the entire contents of the museum to the National Fire Heritage Center. We met representatives from the Center on site at the southern Georgia location, and were able to bring home some unique pieces…mostly importantly of which were several pieces of family history (badges, etc). Our family firefighting legacy extends 102 years now…
Not actually sure how many parts to this year’s birthday there will be. Part 2 is the actual day-of celebrations, which included donuts for breakfast, a lunch out, a special movie experience with Nana and Papa, and a dinner and desert out of his choosing…culminating with the highly anticipated opening of presents. I get the feeling there will be one more celebration as a slew of family arrives over the next two days – all looking to share in the excitement!
(must say, that I love this first picture)
Early mornings. Long days. Short races.
Having done it for like 15 years competitively, I should know and understand this, right? Sure do…from a kids hang-out-with-friends perspective. Now as a parent, there is a different reality to this set up.
Ezra has been doing lessons for quite a while, and for the first time, joined the summer league swim team. Summer league is what I would call a non-competitive fun league, compared to the year-round club swimming of high degrees of competitiveness. To be fair, they practice, race, win, loose, etc…but there isn’t the same pressure; and because it is only six weeks long, it’s full of all ability level swimmers. Regardless, it is a parent’s dream…short season, intro to serious sport without long term commitment, and fun for the kids.
The team has been practicing for two weeks, and those practices finally culminated in the first of five scheduled meets. This season, Ezra swims in the 6 and Under age group, and is officially eligible for only three events: 25m free, 25m back, and 25m breast. We signed him up for the free and back races, and threw him to the racing wolves to see what would happen.
Being at the pool at 545am, watching the set up and warm up, hearing the starter, and listening to the races brought back a lot of good memories. But being part of the larger experience, and seeing it from the seat of a non-participant was a lot more fun than I initially thought it would be. Of course, when Ezra lined up in the heating area, then moved to the starting blocks, then dove (ish) in when the starters “beep!” sounded, then raced as hard as he could to the other end of the long course pool, then finished second in his heat during his first ever race, then got out of the pool with an exhausted smile…well, that made Ahna and I pretty damn proud. Then he did it all over again about an hour later in the backstroke race with a less good finish position, but with all the same effort and joy.
The friend party. While in and of itself, this isn’t a new experience, this year marked the first year that it was entirely up to Ezra on who to invite. Friends from school and friends from life – and none of our parental influence outside of limiting the number of attendees.
This year’s theme was Pokeman (which appears popular again evidenced by a couple of other similarly aged kids having it as the theme of their party). It turns out that nobody, including the kids who love it, have any idea on what Pokeman actually is or how to play it. Ezra enjoys watching the cartoons and collecting the cards – but doesn’t actually do anything with the stuff…which is just fine by us. Outside of Lego sets, the Pokeman cards are the only thing that he collects, and that has been a fun process to witness. Pokeman cards are for him similar to what football cards were for me.
It has been mentioned before, but Ahna has developed quite a knack for building amazing birthday cakes for the kids. Of course, this would be no different. She stayed up to the wee hours of the morning the night before making a ridiculous Pikachu cake and some awesome Pokeball take-home bags.
Most of the last month here in Colorado has been rainy – like Pacific northwest rain at times – so it was nice that at least for the afternoon of his party the weather broke into warm sunshine. From a parent perspective, the unopposed highlight of the party was during the cake presentation/signing of Happy Birthday. Ezra – completely unprovoked – invited Elia to join him on his chair to help him blow out the candles. No fighting, no whining…just pure kindness; and it was beautiful to watch.
Let’s set the scene for a moment:
February 18, 2015 is the 4th anniversary of Liam’s death.
February 19, 2015 is the 15th anniversary of Jonathan’s death.
Today, I was greeted by a warmer than normal winter day with blue skies and lots of sunshine. I was greeted by good people at work coming off of shift, and more good people coming into the station with me. We have been greeted by lots of texts, Facebook posts, e-mails, comments, knowing taps on the shoulder, pictures and even a wonderful poem – all sending their love, thoughts, and support. And this carries us. But…
These two days fucking suck.
I thought for a minute about what words I should use to describe the annual emotions of Feb 18/19. Whether or not I should try to string together a series of descriptions that wouldn’t fail any appropriateness tests, because, you know…using profanity is a judgment on intelligence (which I think is bullshit, by the way). But clarity and understanding are what I seek…not a lesson on how to beat around the bush.
Just like most emotional situations, these anniversaries bring with them a roller coaster of emotion – probably near bipolar at times. Happy to sad, engaged to apathetic, patient to short fuse, committed to tired…and then visa-versa and all over again.
There are two grieving processes that run headstrong into each other over the course of 48 hours. One of those processes is a lot further along than the other, but it’s precisely because of their anniversary proximity that at times they are nearly indistinguishable in their grief.
There are a lot of things that I have learned over the past 15 years, and especially in the last four. But there are two things that stand out above all of the others as ones that feel most paramount this year: Time doesn’t heal. And, relationships matter.
The saying that “time heals all wounds” is an outright criminal statement. Time by itself doesn’t heal anything, what it does do however, is allow things to be less raw. At first, there wasn’t even a five minute stretch where I wouldn’t feel a sickening pit in my stomach; but the longer that goes by, well, I think there are even stretches as long as a few days where there isn’t that pit in my gut.
I have cried a lot – and still do. But time has meant that the need to do so doesn’t come on nearly as suddenly or dramatically. To be sure, this isn’t all about simply time passing – meaning it’s not like we sat in a house and waited for the hours to tick by. This is about the combination of a great support network, a lot of conversation, participation in a grief support group, an amazing family, and a partnership in life with Ahna that …well, she’s just the greatest person ever.
(As if the segue was planned…) There was an assignment as part of the aforementioned grief support group that asked us to think about the people that were there for us when we most needed, and the people that surprised us by their absence. While there were some obvious answers to that question, I didn’t realize at the time how impactful those results would become.
Previously I would have established that two of the most important features in a relationship were blood and longevity. Generally speaking family is important; and if you have managed to stay friends with someone for a long period of time, then that shows a lot about each of you. Actually, I have discovered that neither of those hold the weight that social history would place on them. And even though both sets of people will always have some level of importance in my life, just because we are blood or just because we have known each other for a long time no longer is the pass that it used to be.
Most of my closest friends now, most of the people that I want to spend time with, most of the people that I deeply care about either established and/or cemented their place four years ago. And this group of people – who all feel like family that I have known forever – looks significantly different that the group of people did only five years ago.
In the last four (and 15) years I have tried to not wait for time to pass and to address the emotions as they came. I have tried to migrate away from the relationships that just don’t matter as much, and more into the arms of the people that do. There have been more successes than failures on both fronts, and precisely because of that, I can sit here and openly tell you that these two days fucking suck…BUT it’s supposed to snow this weekend, which means that things will get better.
The Life of a Little Hippie 