looking through me

Tag: family

October 16, 2014

the long walk

Summer camp.

I looked forward to camp for years. Once the eldest started, I wanted to go. And when it was the middle’s turn I became downright antsy—for two years—until I could go, too.

The summer before sixth grade, camp was amazing. I slept in a covered wagon. My team won the competition, though rain prevented us from sleeping in the fort to celebrate. I went rappelling. But on the morning it was time to leave we waited and waited and waited. We waited some more. No bus.

By that point I was done with camp. It’s not that I wanted to go home. I wanted my brothers. The middle was in the junior high camp and the eldest was in the high school camp. I hadn’t seen them in almost a week. I was beside myself with sibling withdrawal.

Then a few people approached our camp on foot. One of them was the eldest! I took off running. He knelt in the road and I ran straight into his arms. And I didn’t let go. So he stood up still holding me, and as they explained whatever the issue was with the bus, I wrapped myself tighter around him.

It didn’t occur to me as all the rest of the fourth, fifth and sixth graders started trudging along behind our high school chaperones that there was anything odd about the fact the eldest was still carrying me.

At the time the distance seemed enormous. Now I know the camps were only a half-mile apart, but it didn’t matter—he carried me the whole way.

 

This post is part of the 31 Days: Family series. Read the beginning, and see a full index of posts, here.

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October 15, 2014

the uncles

Dad had two uncles (see cousins as uncles): Ehrie and Marv. Brothers. One tall and lanky. One short and stout. One born with an extra kidney. One born a kidney short.

On Christmas Eve during the candlelight service they would stand on the stage and rasp out Silent Night in German. Their voices weren’t what they’d been in their youth, but their passion was unquestioned.

When Uncle Marv died—several years after Uncle Ehrie became a widower—I worried about Ehrie. His best friend gone. No one to whisper and laugh with in church. No one to sing with in German. He rallied and folded Marv’s granddaughters in with his own grandchildren.

Early one Sunday morning the sound of screeching tires filled the empty parking lot. I bolted out of my office to see a grinning Uncle Ehrie heading to the choir room. He waved at me and called out, “Ya gotta come in hot—let ’em know you’re coming.”

That was Ehrie. He lived life to the fullest and found pleasure in everything from playing the piano to bowling to mowing the lawn. My parents recall his sterner years. His playful years clad in Hawaiian shirts are the ones etched into my mind.

It’s quieter without Marv and Ehrie. There are missing threads in the fabric of the family we’ll feel for a long, long time.

 

This post is part of the 31 Days: Family series. Read the beginning, and see a full index of posts, here.

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