Baby Evelyn Friday...

Sometimes it's the smallest things that can be the hardest thing about chemo.

This was my Google Calendar reminder this morning....... and it fills me with sorrow.  

Baby Evelyn Day - don't forget to pick up one "A"

When	Fri Feb 17 7am – 5pm Eastern Time
Calendar	Karen Gerwig

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A couple of years ago my thyroid decided to go crazy on me - like it went lunatic to the farm crazy - and I ended up with Graves Disease.  It was a bit trying and my thyroid refused to cooperate much of the time making me go to a part time schedule with my job.

I eventually recovered (although residual lunatic liabilities have hung around some) but stayed at part time with my job, because I kind of had two jobs by then - one was all office and corporate-world suits and  heels - and one was a pair of jeans and a snowman sweatshirt that someone had given me in 2003, but was soft to the touch for my *clients* - this 'other' job had the title "Grandmum".

I loved it.

So I had a little schedule of sorts - when Heidi had her surgery and long recovery, I did the office gig on Mondays and Wednesdays; did Tuesdays with baby twins; then headed to Columbus to help her out on Thursdays and Fridays.  

I was one whipped Grandmum come Saturday morning - but it.was.glorious.

I would call Heidi's phone at 7:45am when I got to the red light at the Polaris exit and say "someone should be looking out their window pretty soon" - and two  little ones would squeal and squeak and sqawk, throw down the phone and run to the window, bouncing like jumping beans when I pulled up.

Millie was so short she had to jump - I would pull up, see her head, then not see her - then again two seconds later there is a giggling crazy smile and then it's gone again.  She tried standing on her dog sometimes.  She used a step stool, but still had to use her fingers like pliers on the window sill just to get a glimpse of Grandmum's car.

The coffee was always on - that Wes is one smart guy knowing his "grandmum-care-triggers" pretty well - we would chat for like 3 minutes, he would leave for work and then it would always happen -- Addy would look up at me and jump and smile and point at all the things we were going to do that day.  She could not wait - let's get this day started.  Now. 

Millie was so little then, and I would spend most of the day doing what her mother could not at that time - carry her around.  We would get the sweeper out and she just nestled deeper onto my shoulder.  We would fold clothes and she got plopped in the laundry basket while I changed over the washing machine.

And that Addy-girl always needed to be in my full line of vision.  Otherwise Grandmum's who were not paying attention would suddenly hear someone tumble down the basement steps because the stair door was left open.  While folding laundry once I heard her laugh and looked - only to find that she had somehow climbed precariously to the top of their pantry shelves - the ones with the glassware stored on it.

She could move.

We would run races around their house and I always told Addy "you can't outrun Grandmum" - which was an outright lie and more old Winston Churchill bluff and propaganda than anything else -- because if she put her mind to it, she could have been furiously riding her tricycle three times around the local park soccer field before I would even realize the door was open.

But she humored me with the races and she would laugh and hold up her chubby fingers and say "'ready mumum?  One - Du" which she would say very slowly and deliberately - quivering and laughing because she knew this little race around their hallway through the kitchen - through the living room - through the dining room and then back again was going to be so doggone much *fun *!!!  But she would hold up her fingers and then finally yell "DE" - and the race was on - Millie planted firmly on my shoulder and Addy running and screaming like the very banshees of haedes were on her tail - the two were connected somehow.   It appeared one could not happen without the other. Run, race, scream.  Scream, race, scream.  Run like your very life depended on the next 90 seconds. 

She would fall, Griswald would get tense, Millie would hang on for dear life and laugh and laugh, but we raced and raced. 

I called them "The Double A's"  - they were like the battery that could go on and on and on and on. We had some pretty good times.

When Kristi and Cal had their wee one last year. I wanted very much to develop a relationship with this new one so sweet - so we set up a schedule of sorts that I would come down two Fridays a month.  Wee Evelyn Wren proved to be the easiest baby-gig ever.  She took four hour naps.  I was worried - I had no idea there were such babies in the world. 

So I did what all unwise and foolish Grandmums do - I called in some "help".  I wanted Evelyn to know her cousins and wanted them to know and care and love on her.  So I told the Double A's that each of them would get a turn to go along with me on Baby Eveylen day - but only one at a time - I might be basic lunatic foolish, but I also know how many hands I have.

Thursday evening I would leave work around 6ish, get to Westerville after 7pm, finding the "lucky" one packed and ready to go - bouncing in the window.  I traveled pretty light for this one-nighter - an overnight bag with a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt -- but these girls knew their overnight needs like a banker knows his money vault -- you *need* a lot of things to stay overnight at *Baby Ebowen's*" house -- a sleeping bag, pillow, dolly, doll carrier, little Bear, Bunny, blanket, night-time sippy cup, toothbrushes, boots, house slippers, snacks, lunch bags, nightgowns, 4 pair of undies "because you just might need them" they would say a little solemnly and confidentially; their Dad carried out some baggage to my car for this overnight stay.

We were on the job and it was a job they took very seriously.

They carefully watched every ounce of formula that baby drank.  They squeezed into the rocking chair with me and we would sing her songs and "read" her books.  We would make up stories about her and then tell them to her.  She would lay on the floor and they would lay down beside her touching her hand and talking to her.

We would line up some chairs and "take her to the zoo" -- we would have a "driver" that had to start and stop the car 53 times while getting there.  The buckling and unbuckling of the seat beats was the most cumbersome job of all - and they were pretend seatbelts.  But we would get to the "zoo" and then they would point out the lions to Baby-Bird, the giraffes and the bears.  Sometimes, the animals *escaped* and we had to run back to our vehicle and lock the doors to save Baby Evelyn.

But other times we would have a picnic on the living room floor pretending we were watching the elephants while we ate, and then mosey on back to our *vehicle*, do the 87 pretend-buckles again, and drive back home.

It was all so simple and yet so good.  I loved to snuggle and love on them and read to them and feed them and pretend and make up stories that we would tell over and over again.  And they all bonded and loved her and she loved them.

It was kissed by heaven somehow, those simple days.

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I would be lying to you if I didn't tell you that my own mortality has crossed my mind more than once. Or more than twice.  

And it burdens me to think about what it is I might leave behind.  It frightens me to think of standing before a holy God.  It frightens me with huge parts of my life that I see as undone. .....  

But one of the saddest that weighs heavy on my mind is that there are five wee ones that I have loved on hoping to enrich their lives with a holy relationship that only Grandparents can have with their little wee ones; and I want them to feel the love and joy and safety and warmth and wonder of being at Grandmum's and Popops house - and it grieves me to think that if this all ends poorly they would mostly not be old enough to remember .

I cry every time i hear their sweet little voices on the phone. It pains me to be so long apart from them.

It's those simple things that drive the deepest dagger into my soul.

Don't worry - I am not despondent - I am not hopeless - I am not depressed - yet - but I do grieve.

And today once again I will be missing the call from Addy-girl or Millie-bean asking me if I "remember that it's going to be be Baby-Evelyn-Friday tomorrow" with a tingling of excitement in their voice you don't hear too much this side of heaven.  And I will miss them telling me everything they have packed and ready to go.  I will miss seeing Baby-Bird's face light up when she sees who just came in the door.

I miss all of that.  And I do grieve the simple things - a heaven-kissed life.