I'd rather do it this way

Good morning son! How the heck are you? Hellooooooooo! Wake up! Are you there? Oh, there you are! Getting comfortable and sleeping in up there are you? None of that. We have a birthday party to plan. Whose? Are you kidding me? Yours of course! Today marks 11 months. Next month, 2 October 2012 will mark one year in your heavenly home, or, the way I'm looking at it as your first heavenly birthday. I'd rather celebrate "birthdays" than anniversary of death. Sounds to negative to me. Hey, I can live in my own little world if I want to. Yes, I know you're gone. So, if you were going to plan a birthday in heaven, what would it look like to you? Hellooooooo! Stay focused son. I said, if you were planning a birthday party in heaven what would it look like? Are you having problems with ADD this morning? Well, you can try to pass that off as an excuse but I know better. You're in heaven so therefore perfect. Nice try though.

So birthday, in heaven, what would it look like? Me? Guess it would be different depending on who is celebrating; just like here. But for you. I see, karaoke for sure. I see tons and tons of people; more than you can count. I see stars in the sky, millions. Clouds floating through the heavens and angels seated upon them. I hear laughter and see smiles. I see faces of those who you have met and come to know throughout this year. I see familiar faces of your grandpa, great-grandparents, and those brothers and sisters that your dad swears were waiting for your there. (I don't know, you figure it out. You're in heaven with all the answers. All I know is that dad swears that all three babies we lost here through miscarriage and false pregnancy were waiting there for you in heaven.) I see fireworks. Of course I always see fireworks when you were around. Maybe not literally, but I can just see them literally in the heavens around you as the comets explode in the universe in celebration. I'll see if I can't see at least the tail of those comets next month. I'd love to be there with you for this celebration but there will be so much excitement you won't even miss us and that's as it should be. 

I'd love to be there and see you try and get grandpa to sing at karaoke. What a hoot that would be. Grandpa can actually sing. He just hides it really well. Some of my best memories are of sitting in "Coffman" row in church growing up and singing along with mom and dad as they sang all the old, wonderful hymns. What super great memories those are to have. I use to cringe as I got older when we'd go to those time worn hymnals and sing the same songs again and again. Now. It's one of the things I miss the most.

Hopefully we all have memories like those. Dad remembers playing with his grandpa's pocket watch during church and the loud rumble of his dad's "amen" as it rang through the church at every opportunity. He said his dad use to love to say amen to the pastor's preaching. Those are memories he'll always have. I hope you have some of those too.

So, birthday. Yours. First one in the heavenly realm. Cake? Yes, I think if I were there with you I'd make the guitar cake again. The one I made for you in junior high. You talked about that cake often. It was a super project and great fun. A full sized guitar cake with "strings" and all. I think I have a picture of that somewhere. Maybe it's just in my mind though. That's okay as long as I have my mind but then what? Then, who cares. You won't need party hats. Everyone is wearing crowns. Tooters? Not really, you have angels with trumpets. Angels using trumpets kinda out trumps tooters. Candles? Are you kidding me. What could you possibly do with candles. Like you'd even be able to see them with all the gems, diamonds, gold, silver and pearl around you. The light of heaven reflecting in all of those.l don't think you're going to miss a single candle. Besides, you're there with the "light". Remember "This Little Light of Mine"? You've never hid it under a bushel before, I don't expect you started when you arrived in heaven. Gifts? I know you don't want any. I mean considering your environment, what could someone from earth possibly give to you. Well, maybe one thing. Continue to live the life and be the example we taught you? Okay, you got it. One last question. Do you get older in heaven? I mean, do you start out in heaven the age you were when you got there? Do you have any age? Not that it really matters. Just wondering.

On to a couple more things. Dad and I are finding that life is pretty funny as we get older. The other day dad let out a "yikes" type yelp as he was walking through the house. When I asked him if he was okay he said, "Yes. I just looked at my watch and thought it was 6:30 pm until I realized I have my watch on upside down and it's actually 12:30 pm. This getting older is really fun!".

As I told you earlier in the week, I'm in the process of closing down Auntie Jan Creations. I feel so comfortable and relaxed about it. It's the right thing to do. I'll continue to work at KJCG part-time as long as the opportunity is there and then we'll go from there. I can feel Fall in the air and the leaves are beginning to change and I see more on the ground. Dad and I are looking forward to taking some road trips in the next couple of months to see the fall foliage. I bought my airline tickets for the CA trip this winter. Dad has decided to stay in Troy. It's just more of a trip than he felt like he could take right now. I'm trying to let him do what is comfortable for him. In the 42 years we've been married we've never been apart for almost a month. This will be a first. That's been our life though. A life of firsts. Why stop now? LOL

And that's what it feels like!

I continue on my goal of getting fit. I'm down 21.8 pounds since Mother's Day when I started. Now that the heat isn't as great my feet won't swell like they do in the summer and maybe I can find some shoes so I can walk with dad and Jamison. During the heat, nothing but flip-flops and sometimes not even those in the afternoon. I'm still doing stairs at work but I really want to be able to walk with dad and Jamison. Yesterday they walked twice. Dad has something going on with his right leg now that has me concerned but I've not been able to get him to go to the doctor. He finally said this morning, "I think I need to go this week and have this leg checked out".  Our diet any more is very light.

Dad and I spent last Thursday and Friday with Jamo and Josie. What a pair those two are. Jamo is constantly looking for something to take a part and find out what makes it tick; Josie....Josie's a hoot a minute. Friday Jamo went to our house and spent most of the day with dad. Josie and I spent the morning waiting for the housekeeper at their house and laughing, "doing hair and makeup", telling jokes, reading and then watched "Beauty and the Beast". I mean I don't think we've ever seen "Beauty and the Beast"! Except for the last 60 times we've seen it. At about 1:00 went went to our house. Jamo and dad had left to go to have a hamburger and then to Target to pick up Jamo's school supplies, new backpack and peddles for his bike. Josie and I were going to bake cookies but by the time we got to the house it was 90 degrees and to hot. So, we made bookmarks, played dress-up, drew pictures and did Josie things....which means, we watched a movie while we did everything else.  While Jamo was with dad that morning he hooked up Netflicks to the Wii and did away with the Roku. You were right, Netflicks now provides closed captioning with a great many of their movies. But it's not available when using a Roku box; only through the Wii. Luckily I have great friends who gave me a Wii when I retired!

Okay, now for the tale of the week. And the joke is on me. I've been working with Jamison so that I can take him out to go piddle without hooking up his harness and leash. We've been working on it for a couple of months now and he's been doing really well. When I want him to turn around and come back and head for home, all I have to do is hit the side of my leg and here he comes. However, last week I slap my leg soon enough and he discovered a fox hole!  He discovered that right out in front of the parked cars, in the stand of trees on the slope of the hill is where our fox lives. When he discovered that hole there was no getting him to come back. I'd slap my leg, he'd come half-way back and then head up the other side of the hole. I have no choice but to head up the slope. Crap! So I've already told you I'm in my flip-flops. Not great for scaling a slope. I'm not afraid of him running off, I just want his head out of that hole. Naturally, in order to get ahead of him I'd have to climb above him because the entrance to the fox hole is dug from the top of the slope down. And the fox is smart enough to have dug an exit about three feet from the entrance. When I chase Jamison from one hole, he just moves to the next. So here I am, trying to get around him so I can "encourage" him to go home. He's paying absolutely no attention. I can't reach him, so I pick up a switch from the tree that's about four feet long with leaves on the end. I switch it back and forth in front of his face trying to break his concentration. How stupid is that. He's a hunter for crying out loud. The ground is layered along this slope in about three feet of leaves and needles from trees. The saplings are many and grow about a foot apart and are very pliable. I'm trying to hold on to saplings as I maneuver through on this soft ground, in flip-flops while I'm waving this switch around trying to distract Jamison.  All of a sudden I realize that I'm on a 90 degree slope, headed up and I'm loosing my balance because of the soft ground beneath me. Again, crap! Jamison is going deeper and deeper into the hole.  As if in slow motion I begin falling backwards. I grab a sapling with each hand and again in slow motion I begin falling as the saplings bend to the ground until I'm sitting, hanging on for dear life because if I let go I'm going to tumble backwards down the slope. The whole time I'm yelling for Jamison to go home, trying to break his concentration with the switch. Now, because of having no knees to speak of trying to get up from a floor position is almost impossible, let along sitting backward on a slope perched and ready to roll! So, I begin yelling for your dad. I'm on the slope, probably 30 feet from the dining room window. When I left 10 minutes before dad was sitting in the living room about 10 feet away from the window. I check my pocket and did I bring my cell phone? Of course not! Why would I need to do that? I scream again for dad. I look around and everyone that lives in our building is gone. The neighbor that lives in the carriage house is gone. You'd think the way I was yelling it would wake the dead (since the cemetery is above us and at the top of the slope) but no, none of them answered either. I must have sat there and yelled for 10 minutes while Jamison is going further and further down the hole. I can only see about the back third of his butt by now and I'm getting madder and madder by the minute. (Should I tell you the rest later when you've stopped laughing?) It really wasn't as funny then as it sounds now. Anyway, the light finally went on and I realized for whatever reason, dad wasn't hearing and I was loosing my voice. I could either sit there until he realized when hadn't come back or, I could get myself up. Now there's a sight you probably don't want to think about. Trying to get up on my knees is something I avoid at all costs. Bone on bone is a very painful experience. I've had to do it many times in the last year and it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. But, nonetheless, I had no choice. Sitting there waiting to get bit by a tick wasn't a happy thought. I was able to pull myself over between two saplings and twisted over onto my knee. I thought if I could just brace myself I could pull my really bad knee up. Believe it not, I guess because of the many inches of leaves and needles, the pressure didn't hurt my knees at all. I was able to get up the first try without having to drag myself over to something to use as leverage. I'm brushing myself off when I notice Jamison is out of the foxhole checking me out. I gave him the "evil eye", slapped my leg and he took off running for the back door. By then I was so mad I can't even describe it. I hit the back door raising holy heck at your dad. "I guess I know not to call YOU for help". Poor dad. I know him enough to know that after that very brief moment of concern he wanted to laugh so badly it much have been physically painful. However, he was smart enough to know it would have been certain death! Jamison went in, drank some water and looked up as if to say, "what's all the commotion about". I probably ranted and raved about 30 minutes, dad said nothing, Jamison taking it all in. Finally, after all was said and done, I had a few scrapes and bruises but none the worse for the wear, dad said, "maybe you should take your phone when you take Jamison". Brave soul your dad!

Until next week, be Aaron, love mom