Snippets From Sam

Jun 20 2008

More Memories on Life

Published by snippetsfromsam at 7:20 pm under Family, Relationships, Writing on Life

First night camping, Devon C2C 2006-09-17_4634

As I become older and more reflective I also become more melancholy. Don’t get me wrong, I am not unhappy or depressed. Maybe wistful is a better word. Time has flown by so quickly. It seems like only yesterday I was the young mother of two small boys. What wonderful times we had growing up together. All my life I had wanted boys and God blessed me with two of the best.

I can’t say their childhood was great but I can say that they were the light of my life. After their father left when they were ages 6 and 8 it was just the three of us. I wanted to make their childhood memories happy ones so I got them involved in sports, music and camping. Robin was the sports guy and Tim the music man. I went to every sporting event and music concert they were involved in.

When Robin was 10 his Uncle Dick, who had become his mentor when his dad left, died of cancer at age 33. Robin was devastated and missed his uncle terribly. To this day he will tell you that Uncle Dick’s death affected him more than did his father leaving home.

After Dick’s death my sister, Linda and I started a family tradition of weekend camping. Our favorite place was the Peace River KOA. They had tubing, horse back riding, hay rides, Saturday night movies for the kids. There were several hundred acres of woodlands for hiking. It was also the historic site of the Chautauqua amphitheater ruins that had been quite the thing back in the 1920’s. There are some great pictures in the recreation hall of the theater when it was still operating. The old cars, the flapper style dresses, lanterns lighting the way to the theater. What a neat history.

We always had a great time; looking for shark’s teeth in the river, tubing, horseback riding, the Saturday evening hay ride, hiking, cooking over the camp fire. The kids were never bored and sometimes Linda and I actually got time to ourselves to sit back and read. We didn’t have much money but at the time a weekend camping cost us about $25 each including food. The kids still remember those camping weekends and when we are together we have the “remember this or that” discussions.

When I wished for boys as a young mother I never realized that usually when boys leave home you don’t hear much from them. Daughters are much better at remembering Mom. Thank goodness I have a daughter in law that calls me on a regular basis.

My sons will never know how my heart soars when the phone rings, I pick it up and hear their voice. Either one, it doesn’t matter. I love talking to them and just being around them, especially when they are together. I feel like I never want to leave because I don’t know when the next gathering might be.

When one or the other of them comes over to my house it seems like the house is alive again and when they leave they take the sunshine with them. The house becomes so quiet that I wonder if they had really been here or if I had just dreamed it.