About a month after I declared it the last day we could eat dinner outside in the evening, the weekend is gorgeous. Mid-70s gorgeous. Sure we'll suffer the horrible fate of climate change in the coming years, but for now we might as well make the most of it. It was a sports weekend, including the beginning of basketball season here in the bluegrass. What am I, Marvin Bartlett? I digress. Here were at the game, no sign of Overalls Man.
The next day at the game Levi checks out his armpit after getting his first stick of deodorant. In a math problem I asked him to calculate the number of deodorant sticks if there are 12 sticks per case and 18 cases. What's a deodorant stick, he asks. Oh, Levi.
At the game it was perfect. I think Overalls Man might be have been sitting behind us, only in disguise as a Wildcats football fan.
Speaking of being confused, these two are doing some sort of modified tomahawk chop. Wrong stadium, guys.
So Sunday night, high 60s still at 9pm, and we just finished a call with Eva where she was tempted with hints of her Christmas present. Far be it from me to say what it is here, but Levi kept asking me for the secret and then telling her. I was struck by the bond between them, sister and brother. Stronger even than their dad's promise of an exciting secret. As much as I pretended to be mad about it nothing could make me happier. These two are forever joined as siblings, and will never let anything come between them. Sure, there will be people they date, things they do, style changes in the hem of some part of their clothes that will temporarily tear them apart, maybe keep them from speaking for a year or more. Do not bother me with those trivialities. They are brother and sister and will always have each others' back.
Just to put a pin in the intro, we had dinner out at Willie's (man, this might be quite the time capsule when re-read 20 years from now) and true to Peloza form, I'm spending the last throes of the evening outside under the patio lights with two sleepy dogs at my feet, one sleepy boy upstairs, and a wife that is working on an academic survey in the office. Luckiest man alive. Hello to myself 20 years from now: S'up?
The most interesting part of the night? The point at which Levi and I get talking about my dad. How did your dad die, he asks. He had pneumonia, I say. He had health problems which meant he had very bad lungs, I explain. But he asks why, and we proceed into a 9-year-old and adult conversation that can only happen in a Town and Country. He asks me about when my dad died, fair question. I explain how I was awoke by the call that my mom answered, and she came into my room and told me that we needed to get to the hospital right way. That my dad wasn't doing well. What a strange experience, at 17. What do you make of this? Dads do not die when you are 17. So off we go. Nope, this is real. He is dying.
At this point I am crying in the van, and Levi knows it. He asks me if I am crying. I say yes. He feels bad for asking, I can tell. But I feel compelled to tell the story. Here is a man who had nothing but still found a way to make it work, to support me in an education that I swore would pay off. And the circle of life continues, right there before your eyes. Literally. on the ICU table, before your eyes. And you try and tell your son not to worry because you learned lessons from your father before you, and benefit from his sacrifice which means you don't need to pay the same price. And suddenly the warm Fall evening breeze kicks in, and I can feel the warm brushes of every Fall evening in my youth, along the Sydynham banks, touch some special memory, maybe my dad telling me to take in every moment with those Peloza kids because life is short. Tractors at night. Don't take anything for granted. Don't let the opportunity pass you by.
And I come back to the title of this post, which was written long before this last pair of paragraphs was conceived, I don't want this to be my last hurrah. I don't even want it to be in 8 years when I will be as old as my dad was when he died. I want to see the versions of me, those amazing Peloza kids, do the amazing things they will do and, at least vicariously, experience what they will experience. Keep me around.
The next day at the game Levi checks out his armpit after getting his first stick of deodorant. In a math problem I asked him to calculate the number of deodorant sticks if there are 12 sticks per case and 18 cases. What's a deodorant stick, he asks. Oh, Levi.
At the game it was perfect. I think Overalls Man might be have been sitting behind us, only in disguise as a Wildcats football fan.
Speaking of being confused, these two are doing some sort of modified tomahawk chop. Wrong stadium, guys.
So Sunday night, high 60s still at 9pm, and we just finished a call with Eva where she was tempted with hints of her Christmas present. Far be it from me to say what it is here, but Levi kept asking me for the secret and then telling her. I was struck by the bond between them, sister and brother. Stronger even than their dad's promise of an exciting secret. As much as I pretended to be mad about it nothing could make me happier. These two are forever joined as siblings, and will never let anything come between them. Sure, there will be people they date, things they do, style changes in the hem of some part of their clothes that will temporarily tear them apart, maybe keep them from speaking for a year or more. Do not bother me with those trivialities. They are brother and sister and will always have each others' back.
Just to put a pin in the intro, we had dinner out at Willie's (man, this might be quite the time capsule when re-read 20 years from now) and true to Peloza form, I'm spending the last throes of the evening outside under the patio lights with two sleepy dogs at my feet, one sleepy boy upstairs, and a wife that is working on an academic survey in the office. Luckiest man alive. Hello to myself 20 years from now: S'up?
The most interesting part of the night? The point at which Levi and I get talking about my dad. How did your dad die, he asks. He had pneumonia, I say. He had health problems which meant he had very bad lungs, I explain. But he asks why, and we proceed into a 9-year-old and adult conversation that can only happen in a Town and Country. He asks me about when my dad died, fair question. I explain how I was awoke by the call that my mom answered, and she came into my room and told me that we needed to get to the hospital right way. That my dad wasn't doing well. What a strange experience, at 17. What do you make of this? Dads do not die when you are 17. So off we go. Nope, this is real. He is dying.
At this point I am crying in the van, and Levi knows it. He asks me if I am crying. I say yes. He feels bad for asking, I can tell. But I feel compelled to tell the story. Here is a man who had nothing but still found a way to make it work, to support me in an education that I swore would pay off. And the circle of life continues, right there before your eyes. Literally. on the ICU table, before your eyes. And you try and tell your son not to worry because you learned lessons from your father before you, and benefit from his sacrifice which means you don't need to pay the same price. And suddenly the warm Fall evening breeze kicks in, and I can feel the warm brushes of every Fall evening in my youth, along the Sydynham banks, touch some special memory, maybe my dad telling me to take in every moment with those Peloza kids because life is short. Tractors at night. Don't take anything for granted. Don't let the opportunity pass you by.
And I come back to the title of this post, which was written long before this last pair of paragraphs was conceived, I don't want this to be my last hurrah. I don't even want it to be in 8 years when I will be as old as my dad was when he died. I want to see the versions of me, those amazing Peloza kids, do the amazing things they will do and, at least vicariously, experience what they will experience. Keep me around.
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