Smoke drifted in my direction and I leaned into it, closing my eyes. I loved the smell of campfires. I didn’t blame my hair for hanging onto the scent.
“Oh ho ho, almost. But…not quite.” I heard a smile in his voice as he said it, and opened my eyes to see my Dad laughing as the two boys took off after the frisbee they’d missed. The smaller one reached it first, and threw it back towards his Papa with a wild screech. My eyes followed the orange disc as it arced over the darkening front yard, down, down. My dad moved quickly to the side and snatched the plastic from the sky before it could touch the ground. I thought of the deep grooved scar running up nearly the entire length of his back, hiding a titanium rod that was holding him upright. I don’t know how he pushed through the pain every single day and played with the kids – especially by nightfall. But he did.
“He got it!” The older boy yelled. Holy Toledo he actually got that!”
I watched them for another moment before glancing at my mom on the folding chair next to me. Her eyes had been fixed on the two girls before us practicing their puppet act for the upcoming talent show. “If you slow down, everyone will be able to hear your jokes,” she made her voice sound like a song – “…and they’re toooo good to miiiiiss!” The girls looked up at her simultaneously, all missing teeth and eyes squinted halfway closed in giggles at the ridiculousness of it all. I looked at them, and my chest tightened. The thoughts of the past years still made me feel totaled inside, like there was too much damage to fit the pieces back together. What it all meant for him — what it meant for them. What it meant for all of us. I closed my eyes again, the sound of their explosive laughter breaking through the sound of my own thoughts. They laughed so easily. Just like my brother when we were young. They reminded me of him every time he walked in the door after a long day of work and they all ran to surround him – bundles of bright sided silliness. Despite everything, they had his spirit – and God knew I was thankful.
The girls shifted on the grass beside us. They leaned their heads together in discussion, then took it from the halfway point of their routine, at half the speed.
The sunny day was coming to an end. Not quite warm yet – but the promise was in the wind, in the way the wildflowers grew in the field beyond us, in the smell of the freshly mown lawn. We could almost always find my dad out on the property at some point during the lengthening days, rain or shine, working on any number of property projects that were always waiting. After math classes for kids. After work. After more work. Always ready with a gentle smile and an ear for those who stopped to talk with him.
My mom stood and walked through the grass over to the cherry tree, where our youngest girl was swinging. Mom’s sterling hair was long now, halfway down her back. In my eyes, she had endless energy. Always available during the late nights for the Big Sad and early mornings for little hungry stomachs. School for multiple grades, every day, again and again and again. Meals, laundry, rides, snuggles, discipline. Rinse, repeat. The slight breeze whipped the strands around her shoulders. She turned back to me and smiled.
How did she do it? How do they do it?
After everything…they just kept going.
I’ve heard so many times that happiness is a choice…like the ones who can’t achieve it simply aren’t trying hard enough. I’ve made the decision, in earnest, every day for too many months to count now — so why wasn’t it working?
I’d brought it up more than once at my parent’s kitchen table, after hours, one of my favorite places in the world. They always listened. “Some wounds don’t ever fully heal.”
How do you keep going with such open wounds? How was my brother still functioning, still having wrestling matches before bed with tiny challengers in his house? How was my dad still so giving, when so much of his life had been taken from him? How was my mom still so generous with her time and love when so often, it hadn’t been reciprocated? The losses kept coming. Stories still trickled through the small community and beyond, and it didn’t seem to matter if they were true or skewed. So many simply looked away. So many walked away when staying would have made all the difference.
Did all the years leading up to this war mean so little? They had taken so much, and my heart couldn’t hear the resolve in my mind to not let them take anymore. I was trying so hard – how many more years could we lose? Would the nerves be exposed again and again when I saw the dealers of so much of my family’s pain in town? In the lobby? Where was the justice? Why couldn’t I let it go? Where was the good in the world?
Of course, as soon as I thought it, I knew the answer to that last part. Them. All five of the kids playing in the gathering twilight around us. They were the good. Sometimes, it felt like the only good, but even if that were true, it would be more than enough. Every single time, they were more than enough. It wasn’t even a choice, it was a given.
“How do you do it?” I’d asked my parents at the kitchen table. For 44 years they’d weathered storm after storm at each others’ side – even the brutality of the last five years. Yet they were still standing. Still giving. Still here.
“They need it, so, we do it.”
That simple sentence trickled down slowly, slowly, into my veins. Into my bones. “This home has to be the steady place where they feel safe when the rest of the world isn’t.”
Steadiness. Didn’t that just mean the routine of waking up and doing the same thing over and over? Routine was important, but was it really so hard? Most adults had to wake up to some sort of “sameness” and do it again and again.
But…they hadn’t said routine, they’d said stability. Was there a difference?
I held their words close and let them rest against my ribcage for weeks. Maybe there was a difference. One was an action, and one was a state. The difference between the repetitive motion of life vs the inner comfort of knowing the solid foundation where it plays out will stay just that: solid.
They were right. That was the mission. Maybe the only real mission anymore that mattered. I kept seeking healing, so earnestly trying to choose happiness, and missing the mark for the roadblock of pain still sitting on my chest. Maybe it wasn’t as important as the world said it was. Happiness is a goal so many chase for themselves. Stability is a gift meant to be given away. Not everyone gives it, but my parents did. My brother did. I think I could.
The sounds of the kid’s made up game echoed around the mountain. I watched them chase each other, laughing. It was these moments that I loved the most – the small ones. The simple ones, the normal days, the little details that are usually forgotten over time. No fireworks, no road trips. Just a campfire in the gravel while the kids forgot about everything for just a little while. Lost in the magic of a late spring night just before Summer, at the home we fought and fight for – for all of them.
Smoke drifted in my direction and I leaned into it, closing my eyes.
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