One Year Since...

I was trying to think of something to write for a blog post, and it occurred to me that it might be fun to take a look at what the kids looked like one full year ago compared to now.


So I dug through my digital photo files, kept by month and year taken. I went to the first week of September last year, Labor Day Weekend, and there it was… such a surprise!

The pictures were those of us packing up our beloved Riverhouse, the last house we lived in, in Ohio, before coming back here to California. It was a house way out of our price range, but we splurged, and the owners came down in price because they wanted someone they could kick out in a year. It was a century old colonial, with a wide, green backyard sloping down to a shallow bend of the mighty Cuyahoga River (thus, why Noah christened it the Riverhouse, as opposed to the “Old House” we had lived in previously).

It was a year ago this weekend that we gathered friends and family together, made them work like dogs, and then kissed them goodbye.

It’s been a year this weekend since I last saw my best friend Pam. Since Noah saw her son, his best friend, Alex. Since I lived in probably the coolest house I will ever live in.

As I was ‘shopping these pictures (yeah, that is slang for “photoshopping” them so they don’t look like crap), I had opened the picture of Noah and his friend Alex on their last day together.

Noah came over and said, “Hey….”

Mama: Do you remember him?

Noah: Yeah, that’s Alex P--------

…and then he wandered away saying, “I really miss that guy.”

Yeah, Sweetie. I miss him too.

And his mommy.