And six years later, we have a bloom!

When Kyle was in 3rd grade, he had Mrs. Lenahan for science. They were studying seeds and plants, and she had the seed of an amaryllis that she told the class was very, very beautiful but only bloomed after five years and then died. You have to harvest the seeds and plant them for the next go around.

Kyle brought me a tiny, flat seed in a baggie one day with a big smile on his face and the explanation that he knew how much I loved flowers and that this would be the most beautiful flower I'd ever seen. All I had to do was plant it and wait. Mrs. Lenahan told him that he would probably be in 8th grade when it finally bloomed.

I was dubious, but I didn't want to disappoint him. I put the seed in a pot, and it has remained there for 6 years. It would shoot up a couple of leaves every so often that would grow about 18 inches high, yellow, and die. A month or two later, new leaves would push their way out of the dirt and grow, yellow, and die. More than a few times, I was on the verge of throwing the whole thing out, but since it hadn't been five years, I waited.

Good thing I did.

After almost 3 months of nothing, the leaves began to grow again. They yellowed and died as usual, but then, a different sort of shoot began to pop up out of the dirt. Lo and behold, it was a flower stalk and there was a bud on it waiting to bloom! We watched the stalk get as tall as the middle of my kitchen window. It seemed to grow inches overnight. This morning, after six years, the little seed that the teacher gave Kyle when he was 9 years old opened its flower at my kitchen window. It is an electric shade of pink, hard to photograph because the photo looks so enhanced. I promise, the flower on this page is exactly this shade.

Kyle was right. It's one of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen, made even more beautiful by the wait.

Missing My People

I am missing my people today. I have been dusting the family room and my shelves hold photographs of special people in my life, some of whom have died. Carefully, I brush the dust off of each frame and stare into the eyes of these faces, captured in an instant in time, forever young, forever laughing, forever sipping coffee on the patio on a summer evening. Their eyes lock on mine as if to say, "I know. I know."

My granny and grandpa stare at me from the Great Depression, young and unknowing that in a few years, he would be gone, and she would be a widow with 7 children. Their smiles are of two people who know hard times, but believe with all their hearts that they will make it work. Granny was no fool. She raised those 7 kids by herself, living alone for the rest of her life. She knew hardship and loneliness, but she loved her family, and she loved me, and she taught me to pray to St. Anthony and how to make potato soup and piece quilts and grow African violets. I always felt like her only grandchild even thought I was one of almost 20. I know she made the others feel the same way.

My other grandma, Mimi, sits on a rock in Central Park. It's 1912, and she's 20 and just arrived in America. I didn't know her well, but I wish I did, and I miss that about her. I think of her strong French accent, which at the time, I didn't hear or notice, and I wish I would have asked her when she could have answered, what it was like to leave everything she knew for nothing familiar and make a new life in a new country.

There is my sweet sister-in-law, Kris, gone after only 39 years. She crammed her life to overflowing even before she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Starting to paint her kitchen the day before we were to arrive for a visit because she was confident she could get it done in a day. Stopping at the outlet mall on the way somewhere because she had 15 minutes to spare, and she knew she could find what she needed in 15 minutes. Going to the Mall of America the week after her double mastectomy because we were in town, and she wanted the girls to go to Libby Lou's for a "makeover." Riding Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom even though the sign said people with medical conditions should avoid the ride because if she was going to die anyway, she'd rather do it on a roller coaster.

She stares out at me from the weekend at the cabin. The summer she found out her cancer was back, we were in Sanibel Island, Florida. We finished our trip, came home for a week, and then trekked up to northern Minnesota to spend a few days at their lake house. Kris slept a lot that weekend, but when she was awake, she was all-in. She got me on the jet ski and took me around the lake, eventually talking me into driving it, at high speed, across the water, spray stinging our faces and wind drying our hair straight up and down. Her hair had finally grown back out and it was short and curly. She wore a white baseball cap because her medicine made her sensitive to the sun, but her face has a summer glow, and her eyes sparkle from under the bill of the cap. The look on her face says, "Come get me, cancer. I dare you."

In the picture of my dad and his brothers and sister, everyone is smiling at the camera except my Uncle Bob. He is looking off at something across the room and laughing. He laughed a lot, my Uncle Bob. He told stories like no one else I knew, sometimes over and again, but we laughed every time because he laughed every time, like it was the first time he'd recounted the story. The man loved a party, and he rarely turned down a chance to be with family or friends. He had a camera permanently attached to his body until he was well into his 80s, always capturing the moment for posterity. In fact, one of my favorite pictures of my wedding is one he took. It's of me looking over my shoulder and smiling at him. It's a bit fuzzy, but the sun is shining behind me, and it's almost ethereal, a perfect summation of the day.

Uncle Bob was the consummate gentleman. He was differential to everyone, always letting me go first even though he was 87, and I was fifty plus years younger. Never disagreeing, just suggesting that maybe there was another way of looking at things. He remembered every birthday, and sent us fudge from Gesthemani Farms, and saved stamps from his friends around the world for my son's collection. He was the first relative other than my parents and my sister to see Claire when she was born, and I remember him holding her with such tenderness, my 80 year old uncle with my day old daughter. It was precious.

And then there is my mom. We are captured on Fathers' Day 2004, the summer before she got sick. We're sitting on the patio swing, drinking coffee. My mom. Until I had children of my own, I never had any idea how much she must have loved me and how much it must have broken her heart when I moved away. I wish she was here to talk to about the weather or the kids or what to do about Dad.

In one of my favorite pictures of Mom, she is holding Claire, who has just turned one. We were at Kyle's tee ball game. The wind is blowing Mom's hair, and it is a mess. Claire has a lolly in her hand. They're both looking at the camera and smiling the most natural smiles. I used to get so mad at Mom for giving the kids everything they asked for...another toy, another piece of gum, a fifth popsicle. I think now, she must have known she wasn't going to be around to give to them forever, so she was trying to give when she could. She looks so natural and relaxed, filling the role for which she was so wonderfully made---that of a woman to love her family.

I'm missing my people. I hate that life is a series of farewells and letting go. It just seems so very cruel.