A Year Of Loving
by Kristina Jacobs
Dear Kate & Bob,
Please forgive me because this letter should have been written years and years ago, but it wasn't. Even though I didn't put pen to paper until now I hope that you will know that the feelings in my heart have been carried with me for a lifetime, and that, though our time together was brief, only a year or so, it really did make a difference.
There is no way for me to know as I write if one of you has passed on. I'm truly sorry if that is the case and I hope you read my memories with the intent that they are given, to let you know (and remind myself) that what we do matters. I trust that the message of love and gratitude will travel as far and as fast as it needs to go and will be received no matter where you are now-after all, I was 8 and it's been 28 years since I sat at your kitchen table sewing doll clothes.
I was in third grade, a smart, talkative little girl with the lightest blonde hair and a tendency to pudge even back then. I honestly don't remember exactly how we met, probably how i met everybody back then, did i say hello? Did i knock on the door selling something for school? Clearly, i never met a "stranger" in my life as a kid because i knew everybody, but some people were special and you were both very special.
I remember sitting at your kitchen table like it was yesterday. We always came in through the open garage and off to the left was the door right into the kitchen. A round kitchen table, a galley style kitchen...we'd have tea...with sugar for me.
Sometimes I'd have sprite...in my own Mickey Mouse or Donald duck glass. After a while I had my own collection of glasses all my own waiting for my visits. Every so often, we'd go to the five and dime or Woolworths for coloring books and crayons. Of course, that required special permission from my mother which was always granted with many warnings not to ask for too much (or anything at all).
Kate, I remember one day we went when you bought me a doll, the kind that came from the craft section with just the doll in her undies...she had dark hair and a little ribbon held it back off her face. I wanted to know why she didn't come with clothes-I soon found out it was for me to make her clothes. We sat together and I learned to sew. First buttons, then doll clothes from scraps. Gosh, my doll was well dressed with skirts, tops, dresses, shorts...some even had little collars, button snaps or lace trim. I needed a little help with the seams sometimes, but I felt so proud of those clothes I made with my own hands.
One day, Kate asked me how school was going and I was sad because I didn't understand how to count money and we'd just had a test on it. Soon I found myself sitting in the backroom where there was this giant jar of coins we practiced with- I found all that money endlessly fascinating...imagine the riches!
We'd count, not just counting money, but I learned how to properly count back change...counting back until you got back to the bill that was given to you. Some today would call that old fashioned, but those skills served me very well in my college years working as a cashier!
I got to spend the night once, because the next morning we were making the 2 hour drive up to Epcot. It was a huge deal to get to go to Epcot and a huge deal to spend the night. That night there was a terrible storm and in morning it was still raining, but we still went, rain and all.
I'd come to "visit" you most days and we'd sit and have lunch. Cold cuts, cheese, little sandwiches or soup...Kate and I would go for walks and I'd dawdle along because I loved looking in the fancy dress shop windows imagining how fancy and classy I'd dress when I was grown up and could buy those fancy clothes.
I'd pick up "ears" from the ear tree-a tree that is still there to this day and still drops its ears on the sidewalk to make kids smile. Me and Kate, kerchiefs over our hair, out on our walks.
Bob- I remember your photos. I know photography was always a love and it's one we now share. You'd develop film and hang photos in the garage. In my mind, I can see New Mexico hot air balloons at a rally and Spanish moss draped from gothic buildings in New Orleans.
We'd do our rounds and visit the hibiscus in the yard, inspecting the blooms, bringing the best ones inside to enjoy. We'd be checking the fruit trees and looking out for the herons and the white ibis, listening for the morning doves. I'd run around and suck the honey from the little red flowers on the bushes.
Bob, I think it was your mom we'd go visit, she was quite elderly even then...she lived a few doors down so we could walk to see her. I'd sit with her and she'd tell me stories of the roaring 20s and prohibition...and dancing. She'd make a formal Sunday dinner with a whole turkey or chicken...I’d never had a real Sunday dinner before. It was like having Thanksgiving any time of the year!
I remember when she left a pot on the stove and it melted into a puddle. It's one of those things I know I see differently as an adult than I did as a kid. I remember asking if I could have the piece of metal. I kept the neat looking metal blob. It wasn't too long after that when she went into assisted living, and I missed her a lot, but as a child I didn't understand.
I only got to stay in the neighborhood a year. It was a rental house and we moved somewhere else. Still in town. After that we moved again...and again. Always in town, house to house. You have no idea how many times we moved as I grew up. Too many. I learned early to grow my roots in memories and experiences, not in places.
I went back to the old neighborhood once. All the houses are over-built now, but your house is still the same all these years later...I'd forgotten the little archway with the statue until I saw it again. It was like time travel, spinning back to the past for just a moment. Your name was still on the mailbox,
I should have knocked, but I didn't. If you got a note written in crayon on scrap paper that looked like it was from an 8 year old a few years ago, that was me. Maybe it was really from 8 year old me, just writing with the 36 year old's hand.
My life has had so many ups and downs since then, but in that moment it seemed like it was down, down, down. I'd come "home" to try to remember me, to figure out who I was after all this time. I'd been away for 20 years by then. I just needed to see the places where i grew up, as many of those little salt box rentals as I could remember enough about to find, to see the old schools I went to, my grandmother's grave...walk the streets in the old parts of town. I needed to figure out if any of it was part of me or not.
I'd just finished up seven years of working on my doctorate and teaching at a university, my marriage was over, nothing I did seemed to help my son with Asperger's (no matter how hard I tried) and I had a toddler to take care of too...somewhere in the midst of that I'd lost the thread of myself.
To figure out who I was, I needed to figure out who and where I'd been in the past. What were the pieces that made up me? Where did my lifelong love of all things tea come from? Why is a walk out in nature one of the most life giving things I can do for myself? When and where was my love of photography born? Why did I know and talk to everyone as a child? How come I didn't follow my dreams of writing so much sooner? Why do I love books so much? A thousand questions racing around my mind, some that I'd forgotten the answers to. If I could understand that, then maybe I could find those lost threads and follow them into the future.
It look a long time, but eventually change did come around. My business took off, I fell in love and remarried. The kids got older, things felt a little easier and I picked up the pieces. Well, I'm still picking up the pieces of me and creating new dreams in a new direction. I'm grateful for every bit of unconditional love given to me and one of the most important things I can do to give back is to make sure I tell you. Love makes a difference.
With all my love,