THANKFUL FRIDAY

I have worked late three days this week and will be working late again this evening. My job has taken up the majority of my mental space. The leftover mental space has spent one day fretting about the gas light on my car, pondering the idea of taking a day off from work to clean out my house, and dealing with Bass Pro customer service regarding a birthday gift card that my brother never received. All of this has left little mental space for writing here.

Despite how busy I have been with all of the science, this week has been a really good week. I have done a thirty minute exercise class every day. Josephine and I have walked every day except for one because of rain. I’ve eaten lots and lots of green vegetables and I have been drinking plenty of water. There have been profound yoga moments and yoga teacher high moments. On Thursday, I was able to break away from work to meet my friend Shruti for lunch. It is a rare treat for me to leave the building to meet someone outside of work for lunch. I love my group and I thoroughly enjoy going out for lab lunches, but I need to socialize outside of work sometimes.

Easter is a holiday that is full of memories that prickle. Those memories are filled with moments of when my family was whole. Recently, a friend of mine retweeted a tweet about someone looking at their childhood home in Google Street View. In the moment the image was taken, there was light on in one of the bedrooms and the person said that they could imagine their mother sitting on the bed in that room. I was so struck by this imagery that I went to Google maps and looked up my childhood home. I have not been by the place since my mother sold it when Dad was put in the VA home. The street view in Google maps was taken before Chris got sick, before we knew that Dad was not well. The antique milk jug holding up a street sign that read “Graham St.” is still marking the end of the driveway. The pictures were taken in what looks like late Spring. I say this because Mom’s azalea bush is in bloom, but her irises look like they have already bloomed and died off.

The steps of what was always referred to as the main front door, a door we rarely ever used, was the place were all of us would gather for family photos. Every Easter. Every graduation. Every monumental moment. We stood in layers on the steps while Randy set up his tripod and camera. As I see those pictures in my head right now, they play through the years and I can see my family grow and shrink with time and it is enough to make my heart crack open. There was a moment in time when all of us, every single one of us, were gathered on those front steps. So I look at the Google street view and burn the image of those steps into my brain. Then I close my eyes and I overlay that image with that moment.

I am thankful for the memory of the time my family was whole.