Show Time!

Owen was the star today in the premiere (and premier) performance of "The Cat in the Hat" at Scribbles Theater. Six weeks ago, Owen began attending a theater class offered by a theater student who works at Scribbles, the Preschool/Daycare he attended with Maya.

Knowing Nana would want the show to go on, we packed up this morning, the day after her memorial service, to truck it back to Bloomington for the performance.

Owen was great! He played "Billy" in a theatrical rendition of Seuss's "The Cat in the Hat." Spun off the hit musical "Seussical," Owen delivered his lines well (he was very good about practicing them with us) and sang and danced his way through two wonderful songs. The only boy in the cast, he really held his own.

Most importantly, he had fun. And so did the rest of us.

Bravo, Owen. Bravo!

Coming together

A week of sadness evolved into two days of celebration for Nana on Thursday and Friday. The mood definitely changed as people came together to reminisce, celebrate family, and commemorate Nana's life.

Maya and I went up to Oswego first, helping Grandpa organize some food for the two dozen family members who came to the house for the funeral.

Grandpa seemed ready for the distraction and Maya seemed ready to help, providing good assistance at the grocery store, and lending some muscle power to stirring the pesto into the gluten free pasta.


Maya also made fast friends with Grandpa's sister Linda. Instantly connecting on issues including height and hair color, the girls giggled and had a wonderful time playing. Maya also kept her dad and Linda's husband Harry on our toes fetching marbles for the marble track game Grandpa had set up in the basement.


Maya also prepared a little surprise hiding spot for when other guests arrived ...

And the people kept rolling in. My cousin Mark arrived with his daughter Isabelle on Friday. Isabelle instantly took to Maya and the two enjoyed playing together all afternoon. It was cool but comfortable, so we made trips to the park in addition to playing and visiting around the house.

The time eventually arrived, though, to prepare for the service. Owen looked great in his necktie as he worked on a portion of what I'm sure is about 15 lbs. of the aforementioned pesto pasta, the leftovers of which are now with us in Normal. (Note: If it's mealtime and you're reading this, consider yourself invited ...)

Indeed, the funeral turned out to be a fitting celebration of Nana's life. There was some sadness, some sentimentality, some tremendous laughs, lots of music ... oh, and some technical difficulties.

The microphones in the beautiful new funeral home didn't work worth a dither. What started off sounding like water babbling across a rocky brook quickly devolved into a screeching nightmare of feedback. I have to tell you, though, I'm kind of grateful for it. Suffering through the sound problems made me relax and separate my brain from the sadness of the affairs at hand.

You'd think, though, with all the arts professionals in attendance (see photo below of us with friends from the BCPA and McLean Co. Arts Center), we would have been able to make things right ...

The service ended with time to visit family and friends, then a rush home to get the kids (who had not napped) off to bed.

Before we left, though, I did get Grandpa to pose with me in front of the strange video playing in the reception room (see below).

While an image of a blazing hearth might seem like a good way to cozy up a room, it seems to me an odd choice for a building with a crematorium ...

Nana would have laughed, too.

The past two days really were a celebration. Nana touched the lives of many, and the memories of her are helpful in healing the void left by her passing. In some ways she's not gone at all. Her influence will be felt by all of us for the rest of our lives.

Missing Nana

Leon Ann Aalberts, Owen and Maya's Nana, passed away last Friday morning, February 18.

She died early in the day, and I was with Grandpa and her at their house. I phoned Amy with the news early that morning, but she chose to tell the kids after school, when she would have more time to answer their questions, away from the rush of our typical weekday morning.

Amy told Owen first. She went to the library after she had dropped the kids off at school and found some wonderful children's books about dying to help explain all that had happened. Owen was contemplative, but seemed to absorb the situation in his usual style. He also seemed to understand the blessing that she had gone on to somewhere peaceful. Amy brought him across the street after their visit so he could play with some friends and overheard him say with with a certain degree of enthusiasm as she was leaving, "Guess what, guys?! My Nana went to heaven today!"

Time and memories help us heal, but her loss is still painful. Her 18 month battle with brain cancer was hard. She faced a steep list of challenges, but did her best to share the time she had left with her family.

Looking back on the past year and a half, I celebrate that we had several good chances to reminisce about our past, share our feelings for each other, and say good-bye. Mortality does not guarantee those experiences, but I'm sure Owen and Maya have little doubt Nana loved them deeply.

The last time the kids saw her was a little over a month ago. She still had some of her mobility then, but getting around was becoming a real and risky challenge. Within a half week of that visit, all of her care moved to her room, saving both her and Grandpa the hazard of trying to navigate the stairs.

Looking back at the pictures of her with Owen and Maya from that trip, it's difficult to imagine how special those final hugs were: for her, knowing they were likely her last from her grandchildren, and, in the future, for the kids as a memento of time with their Nana, who I'm sure they will both wish they got to know better.

That said, Nana did enjoy many precious moments with her grandchildren. She was with them both during the first few hours of their lives, and participated in many wonderful moments later, many of which you will find in earlier entries to this blog.

With Owen, 24 hours old.

With Maya, 5 hours old

We will all be at her funeral this Friday evening, where the kids will meet more of the people she loved and influenced during her life.

On Saturday, we will hustle Owen back home for his theater class's 2 pm performance. It seems kind of crazy given the circumstances, but at the same time it is also a fitting tribute to a grandmother who loved the arts and happily ushered her own children to many rehearsals, and was there at practically every one of our performances.

You were the best, Nana! We love you!

A Valentine's Day with Lots of Love

Valentine's Day started pretty early today ... especially after such a busy day yesterday.

Owen was up first. Lately Owen has been very good about telling people how much he loves them. He's always been very sensitive to emotions and I think he's picked up his queue that some extra TLC is good these days. When he got up, I greeted him on the landing upstairs and gave him a huge hug. He then got dressed and joined his mom downstairs.

We had laid out some Valentine's Day surprises on the kids' place settings around their breakfasts. Owen quickly saw it. "Well," he said coyly, "this looks like something special over here."

Maya was up a bit later. Full of beans, she came down in her PJs (an improvement from the streaking she's done to the kitchen the past two days).

Even through the crazy hair, you can tell she thought it all looked pretty good.

School was fun for them today with Valentine card exchanges in each class, plus a V-Day party in Owen's. It was the first I'd missed as a Room Parent this year, but I had so much to catch up on from all the shows and days I've taken off to go to Oswego these past three weeks.

Speaking of, Amy and I made a trip up yesterday. It was her first face-to-face with my mom in two weeks, and it was a very good day. Grammie and Grampy took the kids for the day so we could share the time with them.

Nana looks much different than she did the last time. Words don't come at all and she's very sleepy. Leg cramps have also been a problem. But she occasionally got that wry sparkle in her eye, like she understood the ridiculousness of her situation.

At least I think she'd see it that way.

She's been taking morphine for the pain, which led to a very interesting lunch where cat naps interrupted her chewing. We'd wake her, "catching her" in the act ... and she'd just smile.

"Can you believe it?" her eyes seemed to say, "I was sleeping with food in my mouth!"

There were many wonderful moments. We got to hold hands for a long time, which I'll always remember, and we gave her crampy leg a good massage to get the knots out.

Amy shared some terrific time with her, too. Mom took so easily to having her head rubbed. Her hair is still unbelievably soft and thick as it always was, and her tired eyes melted as the fingers raced across her scalp. And she seemed to respond very easily to Amy's very natural bedside manor. Mom was, and is, very proud of her boys ... but she always wanted a daughter and seemed to latch on to our wives as her chance to enjoy that missing relationship. It was very sweet to see her so comfortable in Amy's care.



After a few hours, we headed home. It was tough leaving and my stomach was churning for the first half hour. The problem was solved by the sight of the red and blue flashing lights in the rearview mirror. A state trooper pulled us over just as we were entering traffic on I-80. I knew I was feeling emotional, but I couldn't imagine anything I could have done wrong. I pulled my license out as he walked up, but he walked right past my window, looked at my front license plate and said "Sorry, wrong car," as he walked back. He'd entered my license plate wrong and it brought up another silver Toyota Camry whose license had expired in January 2010.

At least it was a good distraction ...

We got back to the Ives' in time to join them for dinner. The kids had had a wonderful day (thank you Grammie and Grampy!) and were a hoot over dinner.

It was a wonder to see them both. For all of the emotion Nana's situation evokes, the best thing I seem to be able to do for myself is wrap myself into the joys of my own parenting. They're wonderful kids and I love them both ...

... especially on Valentine's Day.

Milestone Wednesday

Happy 70th birthday, Nana!

Nana has met her goal, turning 70 today. No one would have imagined this anniversary would have been possible when her cancer treatments began 18 months ago.

Happy birthday, Nana! We all love you very much.

A couple of additional anniversaries are of note today. Yesterday, Owen came home after celebrating 100s day. They counted from 1-100 (a skill Owen has mastered over the past few months), collected 100 of the same item from their home (popscicle sticks for Owen) and celebrated their 100th day of school.

Love the glasses!

Today also marks a fun anniversary, in that Maya is as old today as Owen was on the day she was born. It hardly seems possible, but here she is 44 days shy of her 3rd birthday, just like he was. He seemed so big then. And, yes, he did weigh more. But maybe it's just that she was so little.

Who knows? Keep growing, little one.

SNOW FORT!

Finally, a payoff to the blizzard of '11.

Owen and I went out this morning to shovel a small overnight accumulation from the driveway, and ended up building a terrific snow tunnel in the front yard. The 5' drift at the end of the driveway was a perfect foundation to our project. Ultimately, it may become a "snow slide." We added some water to the tunnel before we came in for lunch, so we'll see how slippery it is when we go out again later this afternoon.

Cotton candy and time with Nana

I'll start this Nana heavy post with a couple pix of the kids enjoying some cotton candy, leftover from the hockey game last week. Nothing cuter than a blue tongue and that sugar-fueled energy in their eyes.

Good luck, Mom and Dad.

I drove back up to Oswego this morning. Today was the day we got Nana onto a hospice plan and finally ended her last shot at chemo. Daniel flew in last night, delayed a couple days by the blizzard. It was wonderful to have the family together one more time.

As you'll see in the photos, Mom's physical ability isn't what it was, but her spirit is still marvelous ... even though fatigue sets in much more rapidly.

Still, there was plenty of good time for hugs and celebrating the affection and appreciation we have for each other.