They grow up TOO fast

Eating birthday cake with Daddy. Happy 3rd Birthday Micah! Cousins and a friend making sand angels!

Is that a monkey in that tree?

U'iLani, 7, reading a book to her cousin Micah, 3.

Micah and U'i up in the loft bed over the stage!

Today is the first day of the rest of my life...

Not sure why that phrase keeps going through my mind....but it is true! I've had that thought often and the other night I had a dream that has stuck with me too. In this dream I realized that unless I live to be older than 108, I've already lived more than half my life. Now, this is true too, but I realized it in my dream.

Maybe after a certain age, most people start thinking this way, but for myself, this is a first. I'm not sure why I never thought this way, I've been around death, people dying and even faced close encounters with death. I've thought often about other people dying...my parents, my son, various relatives, even some of my friends. My own death has not registered with me until now.

I even went so far as to tell David that if something should happen to me, I want a do not resusitate order. I don't want to be hooked up to machines and drain my life and a ton of money away. I just want to die when it is time, don't prolong it. I'm ready. I know where I'm going after this life. I know my family, my friends all have been told that I love them, that I appreciate them. I do need to clean the closets, I don't want anyone else to have to go through that crap, but all in all, I'm ready. I won't be leaving much behind, just some memories, I've got nothing material to leave.

All this thinking about death has made me wonder if I will be missed, if I ever touched anyone to make a lasting imprint.

I've also thought about people like Grandma Moses. She was much older than I am when she found her niche. My own Great Grandma learned to crotchet when she was 80, for the next 16 years she crotched like a possessed person. We all have afghans, pillow cases, toilet paper roll covers, etc, made by my Great Grandma. I think of her every time I see those things she made.

I have other things people made for me that cause me to think of them. Objects my children made. Gifts friends made. Pictures. Even sayings, phrases that stick with me, that made a difference. Some songs, some poems, some books and some stories that people I know wrote or sang or shared with me.

Today I heard from someone that sat behind me in grade school. His name is Herb. He found me on facebook and wrote to me. It was strange because last week I found a drawing he had given me, I think it was in 5th grade, though I first met him in 3rd grade. This drawing was a caricature of me. If my friends saw it today, they would still know it is me. It shows my big smile, the one I hate because my gums show and my teeth look big and my eyes are so crinkled up that you can barely see them. That is my real smile, the one I make when I am laughing out loud, the one I make when I'm not thinking about anyone looking.

Anyway, back to Herb, he wrote me today and this is how he titled his post
.....I'm not pulling your hair anymore.....
I didn't even have to see the name, I knew who wrote that! Herb went on to write that he had been on an online reunion with some people from Jefferson Elementary School. He had written a contribution about me! He then cut and pasted his contribution and sent it to me. It told how this girl, Kathy, sat in front of him and how I had long blonde hair that draped all over his desk. This is true, as my hair was long enough to sit on. I used to comb it all around my head and put little wire rimmed glasses on and I looked just like Cousin It from the Adams family!
Back to Herb. He reiterated how he used to pull one strand of hair out of my head at a time, trying to get my attention. Apparently my hair just fell out and the only time he could get my attention was if he pulled a handful of hair out at a time. He said that I was always nice to him, even when he was being a pest.

Little does Herb know, I had a crush on him. He was kind of a "bad" boy. The kind of kid who grew up to be a biker. The kind of kid who wore his hair long even when we had a dress code. Who never seemed to have his shirt tucked in, even when the dress code said that boys were not allowed to show the tails of their shirts. I do know he was (and still is) one of the smartest, most talented people I ever met. I have thought of him often over the years, wondering what happened to him.
I remember one time Herb made this little shrunken head, I think from an apple. It was adorned with hair that he pulled out of my head! It looked realistic, like an actual shrunken head!

I also recall the time that I went up to the front of the class to give a speech. The entire class was laughing at me. I had no idea why, as I hadn't even started to talk. Someone pointed to an area behind me. I turned around and saw that Herb had tied several strands of my hair end to end, and attached it to my head, and on the very end was a ball of maybe silly putty or maybe chewing gum or something like that. When I was walking that little ball was bouncing along behind me. It was funny, I even was able to laugh about it at the time.

I'm glad that Herb wrote to me today, I think that email might just have been my highlight of the week!