Happy Birthday mama! Since I know you like no gift better than a good blog post, I thought I’d write down a few of my favorite memories of you! Although this is no where close to all the stories we've shared together - even as I look for pictures to include, memories come flooding back of our shenanigans together - like that idiot dude at Arches "Um I think you dropped this" ;) - But without further ado, here we go.
For some reason, I was the only child of the Kennedy family to take the bus to school for a large portion of my life. It helped that Ethan and Mark and closer in age, so they always drove to school together, and my older sibling all had seminary or chamber singers and things that made them have to get a ride earlier than just the bus. Unlike my siblings, till high school, I took the bus to and from school every day.
My favorite bus driver had to be my Elementary School Bus driver – Barb. We gave Bard banana bread at the end of every school year, and unlike all my other bus drivers, she drove down our long Stoney Point Dr so all I had to do was walk up out driveway.
Every day I would walk up the driveway, grabbing the mail on the way up, walk through the garage door and in through the kitchen. Usually, the house would smell like some tasty treat Mommy was cooking, or she’d see me through the office window and wave to me on my way up. Sometimes though, Mommy would be out – no doubt taking care of adult things I had no knowledge of at the time. But, even then, I’d always have something waiting for me to let me know Mommy still loved me. One of my favorite surprises was when Mommy would leave a little note, tucked into a few new library books sitting on the doorstep. Then when I walked inside, some tasty after school treat would be waiting for me.
Another Bus memory I had from my later years was when I would be dropped off at the end of Stoney Point Dr, but as the bus rounded that final bend to our road, instead of a long road peeking at me through the trees, I saw our beautiful orange tractor waiting for me, Mommy seated on top, straw hat on her head, waiting to pick me up. I’d climb up the side and the grab onto the roll bar before we made our way back to the house, chatting most of the way.
One of the biggest bonding moments between Mommy and I was when she broke her ankle right in the beginning of the summer. For some reason every single one of my siblings was gone, for the whole summer – I know Mark was at Interlochen, but Ethan and Hannah? To this day I have literally no idea where they were. There are a couple memories from this period that I remember vividly, but here are a few that stuck out.
Early on in the summer, we had a BUNCH of puppies. One day, early on in the summer, it was pouring rain and I had let the puppies out to go potty. Instead of being good puppies like I had expected as a nine-year-old and coming back as soon as they were done with their business, they decided when they went outside to make an immediate b-line for underneath the deck where it was in fact dry.
That stupid gap underneath the deck – the skunk that lived that for a bit, Roxy digging for years under there from the smell of a wild animal. And of course, little nine-year-old me could not for the life of me get the puppies to come out from under there. After a few minutes of my futile efforts, I came back inside and went back upstairs crying to Mommy, where she wisely, told me to just wait till it stopped raining and the puppies would come out on their own. At this point, Mommy was still trying to sleep in her bed, so we sat up in her room, watching the TV that Daddy had moved in there, while we waited for it to stop raining. Eventually it stopped, and eventually I got the puppies all safely back inside. It wasn’t a big moment, but even when I was trying to help Mommy with her broken ankle, she was still helping and guiding me.
As I mentioned before, Mommy, for a while after breaking her ankle, tried to sleep in her own bed. Quickly she learned that that wouldn’t work, and for basically that whole summer, she slept in the living room, on the nice leather couches. Because I was 9, and the only other person usually sleeping in the house with Mommy, I wasn’t going to sleep alone upstairs alone! And so began the summer of living room living. It also began the tradition of living room naps because sleeping on those leather couches is where you get the best and DEEPEST naps :) I remember Mommy had her books, medicine and computer all on a tiny side table next to the leather recliner where she would sleep every night.Despite having broken her ankle, Mommy wasn’t going to leave her brood alone at their respective camps and activities over the summer, and so we visited little Mark at Interlochen that year. I’m pretty sure we took the element because it had a better area for which Mommy could prop her foot on the dash, but honestly, I can’t remember exactly. But yup, I remember that blue cast propped up the whole ride there. Once we got to Interlochen, we realized that it wasn’t exactly “handicap friendly” since the ramps into Kresge Auditorium were so steep Mommy couldn’t scooter up them without a boost from behind, but we got there in back in once piece and had a heck of a time :)
As I got older, we started going to seminary, and in a happy turn of events, as the youngest, I ended up only having to go to early-morning-seminary for half a year total. Although the whole “seminary fiasco” was a nightmare, it ended with Mommy becoming out seminary and many hours around the kitchen table – reading the scriptures. It was always around the table because otherwise I would fall asleep on the couch, although occasionally we would be able to go into the living room and have a nice lesson there if I didn’t show signs of being tired :) Sometimes early in the morning as the sun rose through the back porch windows, sometime after school while we ate snacks and wrote in our journals, other times late at night when Daddy could join us under the warm glow of the lights. No matter where, Mommy helped us feel the spirit daily and learn to love the scriptures.
One last memory is of course related to Art. Mommy and I have always been art buddies – whether it is to Artprize in Grand Rapids or the Art Fair in Ann Arbor, we would always go on weekend long or day trips to go see (and of course buy) art – always in the spring and summer time, always finding some tasty place to eat after a long day of walking around stalls and looking at varying mediums and displays of art
Sorry if this was kinda ramble-y – these are all memories I have of you mama, that are just happy and moments when I felt your love, when we shared moments, just the two of us :)Happy Birthday! Sorry I can’t be there to celebrate it with you!
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