It's not today......it's right now!

It's not today....it's right now!

This past weekend we loaded up the camper and headed to a campground I haven't been at since around age 12. The campground is an Army Corp of Engineer Park and it is highly regarded and hotly sought after. I made the reservations shortly after the first of the year and when I logged back on to try for more....the park was full. When I was a kid we camped there alot. The park was within easy distance of visiting my Grandmother and cousins, it had great swimming beaches and was deeply wooded. When we pulled in on Friday morning I had absolutely no memory of this campground. There wasn't one thing that looked familiar to me. It is still beautiful, still deeply wooded. It was quiet and peaceful and safe. My only memory was of me 40 some years ago whining that I wanted to leave the park and go visit the cousins.

We left for the campground early morning with my grand-son on board. His Mom had to work and was going to join us in the late afternoon.  I can't even tell you how excited Nolan was. He started asking if we were almost there 5 miles from home. It was his first big outing in the new camper and he "didn't want to waste a minute of the day." We got to the campground, got all set up, grabbed our swimming suits and headed to the beach. Nolan swam for hours. He played with all the sand toys, collected a bucket of rocks and then he caught sight of the playground. We went over to try everything out. He was playing on the monkey bars when a boy of roughly 11 came running over and ran up the slide the wrong way. As soon as he left, Nolan tried to do the same thing. The slide was about twice the size of the one we have at home and although he has mastered that one, he couldn't seem to get all the way up this one. I told him to take off his flip-flops, that bare feet would help him. He kicked off his sandals, backed about 20 feet away from the slide, he placed his feet apart, rounded his arms in a wrestling stance and then this is what he said "it's not today.....it's RIGHT NOW". He took off running with all he had and made it to the top of the slide.

Then there is this: When I was a kid I had so many people in my life, I never questioned that we were all connected. Everyone I knew......knew everyone I knew. It wasn't until I was a young adult that 2 people left that circle and not through death. A Paternal Uncle divorced and a Maternal Uncle divorced. I lost 2 women that I had grown up thinking were my people. One day they were there. The next day they were gone. My Paternal Uncles wife was my Aunt. I never knew her as anything but that. She was there when I was born, therefore, she was always there. My Maternal Uncle wasn't much older than me. I knew his wife from when they were in college and I was in Junior High. She was the older teenage sister that my sister and I adored. With no notice, no consent they were removed from my life. I never saw either of them again until 4 years ago when I saw the Maternal Aunt when she came to support my three beautiful cousins as they buried their beloved Dad. Divorce is the great leveler. It turns people into something you never saw coming. It removes people you never wanted removed. When you are a child it is one of the first lessons you learn in just how little you control.

This is what I know: On the way to the campground on Friday we passed a big dance hall. This place is large, it sits in the middle of nowhere. It is a dance hall of the old variety. It isn't fancy or modern but it is beautiful and it holds many happy memories. I said out loud, not really thinking, just a comment really. "There's the Star Club." Nolan said, "what's that". I told him it's a place where they hold big parties. He asked me if I've ever been there. I told him yes.

A couple of months ago, out of the blue, Nolan said to me, "Nannie, do you know my Dad?"

For the past three years I have been congratulating myself for never saying anything about Nolan's Dad. For much of that time the feelings were raw. Pain rained down on everyone. I thought I had Nolan in protect mode, I didn't want him to pick up on the tension of those around him. In the circle of Nolan, his people knowing all his people, I had removed the connection between his dad and I. I thought I was being a success. When Nolan asked me those words out-loud. All I heard was my failure. For three years it has all been about rights. We became families lost in the he said.....she said.
When you are 4 you don't care about who got what, who said what, who did what and why. You have a circle of people in your life, what you care about is that those people are connected. In six words Nolan reminded me of everything I forgot.
"It's not today....it's right now". Somewhere in the future Nolan and I will have conversations about his dad. I will tell him about the time his Dad stopped and picked his Mom and I up on the way to school when our car broke down on the side of the road. I will tell him about the look that only I saw on his Dads face when he turned and saw Heidi for the first time in her wedding gown. I will tell him that when Poppa was as broken as a man can be and he needed someone to go with him to finish one of Mike's dreams. Matt cleared his schedule and walked deep into the Boundary Waters Wilderness with Pops to camp when the temp was 0 degrees. I will tell him that I was there with Aunt Missy when Matt walked into the waiting room of the local hospital and told us with such pride that he had a son.
When Mike died I personally only called 4 people. Matt was number 4. I will tell Nolan that it was his dad that broke the news to Mike's beloved friend Ana, that Mike had left this earth. And I will tell him that the two best parties I ever went to at the Star Club, both of his parents were there. For right now I said six words. "Yes, Bugs, I know your Dad."

Nolan knows your circle of people can contain people you love, even if you have never met them. He loves Uncle Mike and talks about him all the time. But...what Nolan should also know is that the people he loves, know each other and that regardless of any thing else, we all have Nolan's back.... And we do.

"It's not today....it's RIGHT NOW"

till next time.