I went for an overdue walk this evening after dinner. Elise went to her faith group meeting. Mara was sideways staring at her phone and didn’t want to go with me. I walked to get the mail. There were two flyers posted, both advertising free events at our neighborhood community center this upcoming Saturday. One flyer was advertising “How AI Helps Business.” The other advertised the “Senior Health Fair.” I was more interested in the latter. The mailbox contained the latest edition of the Costco Connection magazine. I’ll read that before I’ll open Facebook or TikTok.
I walked up to Gorzycki. The sky was a light gray-blue with some pink swirls low on the horizon in the west, and long, whispy trails of clouds throughout the sky. It looked like a cold Fall or Winter sky.
I walked the back drive of the school slowly. I started getting that nostalgic and depressed feeling that I seem to be so succeptible to these days. Things like the light pole I’d always stop at at the top of the hill on the school grounds when I’d walk Mara to school. I haven’t walked her to school since late-January. I started working in an office back then.
And then I walked down Allerton. Between running hill repeats and almost 6 years at that school with both girls. It’s not the same as it was when they were in elementary, but it’s still the middle school that our girls attended, and is so close to the house. They build that school shortly after we bought our house.
Maybe it’s the change in seasons. Maybe it’s the nice, walkable weather. Maybe it’s just life flying by as it seems to do nowadays, and I need to acknowledge and heed the notion of slowing down.
Back in mid-May, Jared came over to hang out. He and I were out back, shooting pellet guns from the deck. Jared sat down on one of the wooden benches of our deck dining set and said bench broke. Mind you, the furniture had long since seen its better days. And Jared’s also a 340-pound offensive lineman. That was the moment that solidified my decision to design and build a table and benches for the deck. Two-by and four-by treated lumber is heavy and clunky and wood. I wanted to build this furniture out of steel.
My friend Jeff invited me as his guest to Asmbly, and he spent an hour with me to teach me the basics of MIG welding. At the end of that lesson I was able to stick two pieces of metal together. I’d figure out the rest later.
And over the course of four weeks of many nights and weekends, I built our new patio furniture framing out of 11-gauge 1.5″ hot rolled steel tubing. I grinded (ground?) every square inch of every piece of tube. I miter cut each piece to make right angles. I grinded more. The part that I was most excited about–the welding–really only comprised of about 10% of the project timeline. Then there was more grinding (of my welds). I recently read a funny quip: “grinding and paint make the welder I ain’t.” I did leave a lot of my welds still exposed. They might not be pretty welds, but they hold two pieces of metal together, and I got a dollar that says one of those benches will easily hold three 340-pound offensive linemen.
It was a lot of hours in the evenings and on weekends, but it was a ton of fun to think about, research, and build.
The last line was drawn on August 13, 2024. It was the morning we set out for Charleston, WV to take Maly to start her freshman year at college. It’s the 46th line. On the 45 previous lines the date is written just below the line. Except on that last line.
When we were a young couple and we’d visit other people’s houses, I’d sometimes notice a child(ren)’s height markings inside a door jamb. My dad used to measure me against a 4×4 post that supported our patio arbor at the old house in Bear Creek and mark and date my height with a pencil on the post. If that post is still there, I’m sure my growth has long-since faded or been painted.
I guess we waited until Maly was three before we started measuring her at our house for fun and nostalgia. We always knew that this probably won’t be our forever home, so I wanted to mark her height on something we could take with us. So I bought a stick of 1×4 composite primed trim and screwed it into the drywall right next to the garage door. And that’s where we’ve marked our children since 2009.
Today I was helping Mara hang her really cool 3D sea animals that she made out of cardboard frames and paper mache. I went out to the garage to get the ladder, which is right next to the girls’ measuring sticks, and I caught myself gazing at the last 16 years in a blink. As fast as it takes to scan the 46 meticulously-drawn lines is how fast it feels those years have passed. But I’m happy and thankful to have these lines. And the five(ish) years we still have with Mara and more lines to be drawn.
I haven’t cried once since Maly left for college a couple weeks ago. I’ve gotten a little weepy at times, but I hadn’t shed a tear. In two whole weeks — actually, closer to three weeks now that I think about it. This time last year I would’ve been crying 3-4 times daily.
Today I got the weepiest as I looked at the top part of that left measuring stick. That one’s Maly’s. I got weepy because it wasn’t until she’d already been down the road for five hours on her way back to college did I remember to measure her. I texted her a few hours later to check on her, and to jokingly tell her that I needed her to come back so we could measure her. Except I wasn’t really joking. I really wanted her to come home. So I could measure her. And so I could hug and hold her again. So I could take away whatever hurts from her. So I could tell her I love her over and over again.
And for whatever reasons, I had this thought for the first time: when do I stop measuring her? Should we do it during her winter break? Or does it just become an annual tradition that we do before the start of a new school year? And then I thought about how she’ll be 20 years old at her next birthday. And then I had a thought that set me on my heels and took my breath away. That top one. That last one. That’s the last one. That was the last one.
This is where you stop.
I remember walking behind her as we were headed to the driveway to pile into the rental van. She stopped in the office to say goodbye to Blue and she was crying. I was crying too. I just didn’t let her know that I was.
I’d measured her earlier that morning. I don’t remember if it was hours or thirty minutes before we’d left. I think it was Elise’s reminder to measure her. I thought it was cute. “Oh, yeah. This is a big one! The day you move away to college.” And never did the thought cross my mind that it could be the last. But maybe it should be. She was 18 years old when she moved out to go to college out of state. As her Boppa always told me, “you’ve given her roots and wings.” She’ll always have a home here, but she’s an adult now. I hope one day she’ll be marking my grandchild’s height on a nice piece of wood and not a cheap piece of primed particle board trim from Home Depot.
I think I’d like to leave that cheap piece of trim measuring stick as-is for as long as we stick it out in this home. I’d imagine I’ll look at a lot more these days. That’s why I put it there.
Last Wednesday was Back to School night at Gorzycki. At some point during the day I realized that this will be the last Back to School night that we’ll attend at GMS.
There’ve already been other “lasts.” I don’t know why it didn’t maybe sting more that it did, but we said goodbye to Kiker Elementary two and a half years ago. That should’ve been tougher than it was — and maybe it was tough and I just don’t remember — as that was the girls’ first school, and we were very involved in the school all through elementary.
I stopped and took this picture of us while we were in some hallway at Gorzycki Middle School at Back to School night because that’s the last Back to School night we’ll attend. There was a herd of people walking toward us as all the parents were transitioning to their children’s next classroom, but I didn’t care. If I didn’t take this photo, then we wouldn’t have a photo of one of these last moments and experiences.
