One of my favorite jobs I have as a mother is being a keeper of memories.
The early years of my children’s lives are the happiest years of my life, and yet I know they will forget this part of childhood. They will comb over the excessive photographs I have taken documenting their lives, and those pictures might even coalesce into some sort of false memory, not a true, watery one that never fully rises to the surface of conscious thought.
The real memories will be mine. I plan to relive this time when I am an old woman with tears of joy and nostalgia running down my wrinkled face. I will search my mind to match words to images, so I can share them with Max, Jack, their wives and my grandchildren. When I tell them about the summer of 2013, this is what I will say:
This was the summer …
when Max answered, “I’m five,” to playground questions and Jacked piped up, “And I’m tree!”
This was the summer …
I could take you boys to the beach by myself for the first time, and watch you play trucks while the waves waved behind you.
This was the summer …
I let loose my tight grip on our wallet and diet and flagged down the ice-cream truck.
This was the summer …
you were first fearless in water.
This was the summer …
you made new friends everywhere we went.
This was the summer …
you rode the same carnival plane rides that I rode as a child, spinning round and round and going up and down. I wondered if you dreamt of breaking free into solo flights the way I did as a little girl.
This was the summer …
we spent three weeks in Washington, but all you talked about was the one night we spent camping in Idaho.
This was the summer …
you got dirty.
This was the summer …
we sometimes skipped baths and you ran through our backyard sprinklers gloriously naked.
This was the summer …
Aunt Kate explained to you how to roast a perfect marshmallow.
This was the summer …
Jack slept in the yellow toddler bed my Daddy had built for me.
This was the summer …
you tasted huckleberries.
This was the summer …
we released baby sea turtles at night on the beach.
This was the summer …
we wore hats everywhere.
This was the summer …
we read chapter books every night.
This was the summer …
we fed giraffes at the zoo and teased dinosaurs at the museum.
This was the summer …
our park turned into a lake and our puddle jumping turned into waist-high wading after all that rain.
This was the summer …
Jessica and Liam told you all about teenage boys.
This was the summer …
you graduated from Nature Tots and said good-bye to Miss Molly, your first teacher.
This was the summer …
we took a tractor ride and played trucks in the Pea Pit on Green Bluff Farms.
This was the summer …
we watched Curious George in the afternoons.
This was the summer …
you wore superhero capes to the library for almost every storytime.
This was the summer …
dragons and puppets came alive for you.
This was the summer …
you climbed the mango tree for the first time.
This was the summer …
we rode trikes and bikes.
This was the summer …
of Legos for Max.
This was the summer …
Daddy made you drip sandcastles by the Gulf of Mexico.
This was the summer …
we saw a magic show and Jack became a magician at lunch, dramatically showing us his jazz hands saying, “See, there is nothing in my hands,” after every bite disappeared.
This was the summer …
we flew back and forth across our big country.
This was the summer …
we snapped puzzles together on the floor for hours on rainy afternoons.
This was the summer …
we spent stomping on each other’s shadows
and how we laughed.
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