The Story of Us - Part eight

 

Going home

From just after New Year in  1996 to Feb 1st 1997 my Dad fought esophageal cancer. At first he had surgery and then came to visit us on the coast. He climbed big sea stacks with two and three year old grandsons and had been told they got it all. But his bones ached. Returning home he learned it had spread, not only into his bones but also kidneys. It was a long, painful goodbye after that. We kept getting called back because he was dying. And then he would rally a bit and we’d have to go back to work. I remember hearing him tell me he had cancer and feeling like ice water had just flushed through my veins. 

I’ll never forget that Greg was with me everytime we went back. Loving my Dad and I, and taking care of the family. And when the inevitable happened and I collapsed he was there over and over again. Taking me to my healing places at the beach and redwoods and bringing my mom and brothers along on trips to watch whales and ride the skunk train and camp in tree houses and often including my mom and youngest brother in Christmas and summer vacations at Greg’s parents or siblings homes. For awhile the two of them were even included in the Goode Family Christmas gift exchange.

Disneyland visit 

With my mom and brother and our best friends. 
My boys were beyond blessed to find an extended family in the small group of kids in grandma Nadine’s daycare. She always said that when Greg and I adopted Austin that she adopted us. 
Two of the other kids were in one family and that family and ours became like real cousins. We spent holidays together and twice travelled to Southern California to do sea world and Disneyland and the beaches. My mom and that girl had adjacent birthdays. June 30 and July 1st and we spent both days in Disneyland. They wore birthday buttons and got lots of special attention. It was a great trip and on the way home we stopped in San Francisco and saw the musical version of Lion King.

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails

I’m glad that we were together from 1982 until 1993 before we finally had the son we had been talking about even on our very first date, when Greg and I drove up next to Yellowstone Park’s East Gate to listen to my friend play the piano at Pahaska TeePee. 
Once we had first one son, then in 18 days after his first birthday, two boys, life changed focus. It helped that we had already learned to adjust to living together, and liking each other as friends because there were a lot of days we were on the run in several different directions at once. We liked the adventure of following their interests, from pirates and fishing to cello and violin, to horse riding or renting quads at the beach. We camped, and rented cabins or yurts in Oregon State parks. Once Greg took the boys to Wyoming and South Dakota for his Dad’s 70th birthday while I was working. Several times I worked summer school, and then he worked sumner Band Camp and paint crew while the other stayed home. He took one year off and arranged field trips with the neighbor kids to plywood mills and aquariums and did big batches of blackberry pies in assembly line fashion, or borrowed a cider press and harvested our apples. They made one funny, scary movie called “moon monsters”
I encouraged messes, loving paint and science experiments and digging in the sand and mud. I loved that the spring horse I was given for my first Christmas was resurrected to gallop once more.