The Greatest Superpower

Clark Austin Garrett


September 19, 1989 – July 27, 2010

***

In the summer of 1989, just after I graduated from high school, I went to Nashville to stay with my sister Carla. She was expecting a baby boy that September, and I would be starting college before he was born. I just had to spend some time with her before my life would get so busy.

While I was there one day, she left to run a quick errand by car while I waited at her house. I thought I heard her return, and I expected her to come inside right away. When she didn’t, I looked out the window, and there she was, big and pregnant, trying to push her car out of a ditch by herself. I ran outside, yelling at her to quit before she got hurt, but by the time I got to her, she already had the car part of the way out of the ditch. It was amazing, like she had sudden superhero strength.

I know that incident had nothing to do with why she named that precious baby boy Clark. But his whole life, Clark Austin Garrett identified with Clark Kent, and he grew up loving Superman. His room was full of Superman posters and collectibles. His first car had Superman floor mats. He had a little pug dog named Lois (as in Lois Lane). Superman was his nick name. He even had a Superman tattoo. And at his funeral this week, dozens of his friends honored him by showing up in Superman T-shirts.

It turns out that Clark had more in common with Superman than just a name. He had some pretty amazing powers too.

Clark always tried to make other people feel safe and comfortable, and like Superman, he was very protective of the innocent. He wore no cape, but he was cloaked in a peaceful, friendly presence that carried him everywhere he went. He couldn’t leap over tall buildings, but he could overcome prejudice and find reason to forgive people when their ignorance blocked their understanding. He couldn’t fly, but he did jump out of an airplane once. And he may not have had x-ray vision, but he had gorgeous piercing blue eyes and the miraculous ability to look deep inside people and see the good in them, no matter how deeply that good was hidden.

Clark certainly didn’t have a secret identity. He was open and sincere. But he did have many moments of self-doubt that he kept hidden from others, and sometimes he was lonely. He struggled to balance his own ambitions with his fears of failure. Like any of us, he was still trying to figure out who he was.

There was always something very different and special about him, like he had the wisdom of the ages in his young body. When Clark was a tiny thing he used to tell elaborate stories about when he was an old man living by the railroad tracks. He’d call it “my other one life”. He was so convincing in his details that it was easy to imagine that he actually might have lived before in another body and time.

His was an unusually gentle and nurturing spirit. Clark was twelve years old when my son Luke was born. And at the risk of crossing the “too much information” point, I have to tell you that he actually filmed the birth. He was fascinated by the whole process, and having a doctor for a dad, he was not as squeamish as some. He fell in love with Luke, and as soon as he could hold his new cousin, he did. Never before or since have I seen a young boy so attentive to a baby. Not just that, but he was especially sensitive to my then two-year-old daughter Claire’s having to share her spot at the center of her parents’ universe. He was determined to give her as much attention as the new baby so that she wouldn’t feel left out.

He made both of my kids feel special and valued. Throughout the years he has spent hours playing with them and reading to them. He made a point to remember all of the cute little things they ever said or did when they were small, even some of the things I had forgotten. He often quoted them, and just recently on the phone he asked to talk to them, just to hear their voices. I have so many pictures of him holding them. They adored him. We all did.

Clark was so much fun. He was adorable and sweet and funny. As a baby he ate sand on the beach, just to try it. As a toddler, he said cute things like “cragee” for “crazy” and “doot” for “fruit.” And every time we’d get in the car, he’d yell, “seat butt”, which is how he pronounced “seatbelts”, to remind us all to buckle up.

He was immensely talented in so many ways. He shined with a light to which people were attracted like moths. He just made folks happy.

At my wedding in 1995 (he was five years old) he danced so enthusiastically and so amazingly well that people gathered around just to watch him get down and boogie. At a friend’s wedding recently, my son Luke did the same thing. We told him he was like his cousin Clark, which made him very proud.

Once on a cruise when Clark was about six years old, his parents found him on a stage telling knock-knock jokes at a comedy open mic night in a room full of adults. The audience was cracking up.

Clark really lived. He swam with dolphins. He learned to boogie board. He wrote stories. He learned magic tricks. He did great impersonations. He loved old rock and roll and movies. He adored turtles. He loved sweet potato casserole.

He was sometimes messy and scattered. He once fell into the DuPage River while visiting my parents in Illinois. He often lost things. But I think that helped him to be a person who let things go. He was so generous. And he had so much to give.

Clark was unlike anyone else I ever knew. He was, without exaggeration, the most humbly spiritual young person I have ever known. He went to church even when the rest of us stayed behind, and his bible was very important to him. He prayed often and in diverse ways. Sometimes he would courageously ask the family to gather with him to pray, and even if it was uncomfortable at first, it always made us feel better. Last December in Texas, he said a beautiful prayer over my brother Mark’s deathbed that brought a measure of comfort to our family during that horrible time. His presence was peaceful and positive.

He deeply respected his Native American heritage, and he learned a great deal about it. He attended many powwows and gatherings. Just before he died, he attended a Cheyenne Sun Dance ceremony in Oklahoma, which is a ritual honoring the earth and its cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth. There he dug fire pits in the hard ground, prayed, fasted for days, watched dances, listened to drums, and simply found himself. After the ceremony, he took time to tell his parents how very much he appreciated them. He said that the whole experience left him feeling purified and renewed.

Predictably, though, he gave as much as he received at the Sun Dance. During the ceremony, his Cheyenne family presented him with a special blanket to honor his devotion. It was a sacred object to stay with him throughout his life and to eventually be buried with him. They never dreamed that burial would be only a few days later. The Cheyenne were, like all of us, shocked and crushed by his death. They have made food offerings for his spirit journey all week.

He was just starting to make great plans for his future. Just three weeks ago, he and I exchanged a series of long e-mails discussing his goals. He told me he really wanted to study the environment and do something philanthropic. He wanted to travel, he said, and was looking into the Peace Corps. We discussed study abroad programs and languages he might learn and how he could come visit me at my home in Germany. He seemed so excited about seeing our world and doing good things in it.

Now instead, Clark’s future will be played out in another world. I can’t imagine that God is done with him just yet. I have a feeling that He is using Clark’s gifts in a different way that I won’t understand until I leave this world myself. His love is just too eternal to be finished.

My children were inconsolable when they learned of Clark’s death. And practically, like a normal child, Luke was so worried because he had promised to show Clark all of his Lego creations when we all got together in August. I told him not to worry, that Clark could probably see them all from heaven. He liked that idea.

Yesterday morning Luke ran into my bedroom and woke me saying, “Mama, I had the most awesome dream! Clark was alive and we were playing together in our Colorado house. The whole family was there and we had so much fun! It was like he was really there!”

Clark had told me once that my house in the Colorado Rockies at Christmastime was the place he felt the most at home. I told Luke that I thought Clark really had visited him from heaven in his sleep. That made him so happy.

Later that day a butterfly landed on Luke’s hand and stayed there for a long time. He asked, “Do you think this could be Clark visiting me again from heaven?”

Why not? If anyone could do that, Clark could. He had the deepest, purest love I’ve ever seen. His love was his real super power. And the best part is, unlike Superman, Clark was real.

Mark Joseph Harvey

Written Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Today is my 38th birthday. But I'm going to set aside celebrating my own life for today and instead celebrate my brother's. This afternoon in Glenrose, Texas, we will hold a funeral for my big brother, Mark Joseph Harvey. He was killed in a terrible car accident this past weekend. He was 45.

I realize that it might sound really terrible to say that I'd be celebrating at all. Losing him is devastating, and I miss him like crazy. All of our hearts are broken today. But my parents, my brother Si, my sister Carla, and Mark's three daughters, Sarah, Skylen and Scarlett have been sharing lots of stories about him. We alternate laughing and crying. I'm sure he's listening in and smiling. At the viewing last night and through calls and e-mails, so many people have expressed their love and admiration for Mark. I've heard so many examples of his generosity and good nature. That makes me proud of his life, and I just feel like celebrating him.

I'm sad to say that in the past six years, Mark and I saw each other only twice, and in the past twenty years we've not seen each other much at all. I feel lucky to have been able to hear so many stories this week from people who knew him well during the years that I missed. My brother Mark meant something different to each of us. To some he was a co-worker, fishing buddy, neighbor, Masonic brother, or friend. To others of us he was an uncle, sibling, cousin, father or son. What I can tell you about Mark is what he was like as a big brother. I am proud of the fact that, as the youngest in the family, I'm the only person in the world lucky enough to be able to call him big brother.

If you'll excuse me, I'll tell you something embarrassing about myself that will tell you a little about Mark as a big brother. When I was a little girl, sometimes I would wet the bed in the night. When that would happen, I wouldn't wake my parents because my daddy had to get up so early for work. Instead, I'd wake Mark. We're eight years apart, so he'd have been in junior high then. I remember that he'd always get up and help me get into clean pajamas, then let me sleep in his warm, dry bed with him. I'd lie there staring for the longest time at his clock radio glowing orange light until I'd gradually fall asleep to the sounds of the radio playing low, mixed with his heavy breathing.

Once, Mark broke his leg and was housebound for a while. I shamelessly took advantage of the situation by forcing him to play "wedding" with me. I wore a white nightgown like a cape, with a lovely hot pink feathered swim cap on my head to be the bride. He was my groom with a big white cast. Somewhere there is a silly picture of us that day, and it always makes me smile to think of it.

Now as an adult, I can appreciate how unusual it was for a boy his age to care to spend so much time with a little kid. But he did. He'd play games with me (Trouble was our favorite), read me comic books, and tease and tickle me. I adored him.

Oh, don't get me wrong. He knew it was in the big brother job description to torture his little sister with teasing, fighting, and doing all sorts of gross big brotherly things to me. And he certainly did the job well. Those of you who know what a "Dutch oven" is may understand what I mean. He also used to pin me down and rub my nose in his armpit and yell, "smell my roses!" I remember trying to swing at him while he held my head away from him with his long arm, keeping me just far enough away not to be able to hit him.

I also remember how, during a road trip to California in 1977, I had pestered him to play "go fish" with me so long that he finally got mad and grabbed my Donald Duck playing cards and threw them out the car window while we were speeding down the highway. I didn't forgive that one for a long time.
He didn't particularly enjoy babysitting me, either, but he did sometimes. When he did he'd always say, "I am your elder. You must do what I say." Once he even spanked me, which was probably the last time Mama ever let him babysit me.

But then there were the times too, like when he woke me in the middle of the night to give me a giant stuffed pink poodle that he had won for me at the county fair. Mama fussed at him for getting me up, but he was so excited that he couldn't wait. He always did love arcade games, and he'd often win things for me. Another time he won a giant Winnie the Pooh for me at Circus Circus in Las Vegas.

I remember so well the teenage Mark who fretted in front of the mirror for ages feathering his hair and deciding whether or not he looked cool in his bell bottom jeans. He did, of course. He was always cool, and the girls loved him. I remember his rock collection and his arrowheads. I remember the Charlie's Angels posters on his bedroom wall. It seems like yesterday.

Some of my favorite times were when he would let me watch him draw in his sketch book. He must have been influenced heavily by our granddaddy's art because he liked to draw dogs, guns, shrimp boats and hunting scenes. I always told him, even as an adult, how good I thought his drawing was. But he never would believe me.

I think that maybe, like so many of us, Mark didn't always love himself as much as everyone else loved him. Of course, that may have been impossible since we all loved him so much.

I feel so blessed that, at the very least, last week I got a sudden urge to touch base with him over the internet. I just let him know that I missed and loved him. He wrote a few sweet lines back to me in response, and his very last words to me were "I love you."

When I dig past all of the years that we spent growing apart, that is something that has never changed. In the end it is all that really matters. I'll always love my big brother and I know that he loved me back. And if I am to honor his life, I have to be grateful for the miracle of each breath and each heartbeat that kept him with us for forty-five years. He touched so many lives. He had a big heart. And I'm proud to announce that even though he's gone, his big heart will keep beating. He donated his organs and a transplant recipient was found for his heart just before he left us. That is such a comfort. A miracle, really. Mark would be so glad to know that even in death he's still helping somebody.

I'm thrilled to think of Mark in heaven, fishing with our granddaddy, running barefoot (as he always loved to be) with old hunting dogs, eating gumbo with our grandmother, Dee Dee, and looking down and blessing each of us. I know that when my time comes to join him, he'll greet me with open arms. That brings me peace. I can't wait to see him again.

Making the “Most” of Autumn Memories

This weekend we enjoyed the best of autumn in Germany. Oh, it was rainy and gray. That is normal. But the leaves have changed color, people are wearing their wooly sweaters, and it’s fall festival season. If I suspend realization that fall is the opening act for the long cold winter, I can live in the moment and really enjoy the gifts of this time of year.

Saturday Dave and I attended a regional market and fest in Tübingen while the kids were in a theater workshop. Tübingen is one of our favorite towns, with its gorgeous bridges, old Fachwerk (wood-beam) houses, cobblestone streets, and willows bowing into the Neckar River. It’s a university town, so it is truly international and open, maintaining that delicate balance between progress and tradition. There we bought some goat cheese, farmer’s bread, candied quince, and Hollunder (elderberry) blossom syrup to mix with fizzy water for one of our favorite drinks.  Oh, and I got a fabulous new pair of red high-tops, just to enlighten anyone who may have suffered from the delusion that I'd grown up.

On Sunday we went to the Holzgerlingen town fall festival and flea market. There we enjoyed drinking fresh apple cider (known here as Most, pronounced “m-OH-sh-t”) straight from the old wooden press. We walked through the town museum, chatted with local friends, and enjoyed eating shrimp scampi, fish ragout and calamari. At the flea market, Luke was thrilled to find a 530-piece (I kid you not) race track set with remote control cars. That afternoon he and Dave spent nearly four hours setting the thing up. Then we had to move furniture around to make room for it to stay up since once it gets taken apart, I doubt it will ever be put back up again.

Monday Dave was off for Columbus Day and the kids had school, so he and I spent the day filing and converting old home videos into DVDs. I laughed and cried watching babies learning to crawl, school concerts, Christmases and birthdays, long-gone pets, and family reunions. I saw us as young, sparkling new parents with that luster of idealism and energy about us. I’m not complaining, but it truly is sobering to realize how much the kids have aged us in eight years.  Or maybe it was Iraq that did it.  Or Hurricane Katrina. Anyway, we looked much sweeter back then.

Seeing those films of Luke and Claire as toddlers felt like reuniting with loved ones from long ago. It’s funny how much I’d forgotten exactly how my kids looked and sounded when they were small. It’s like at the end of each day my image of them gets shaken away like an Etch-a-Sketch, only to be replaced the next morning by a new image. After a while it’s hard to remember the earliest versions of them. It helps if I remember that growing up really doesn’t mean leaving childhood behind. Instead, it means growing new layers like an onion, so that somewhere in the center of each of us is still that very small child that needs love, attention, and affection. So when I tucked the kids into bed last night, I hugged each one a little tighter and said a thankful silent prayer that even when I am 99, they will still be my babies.

I was also reminded that I really need to take more video of us nowadays. It’s easy to think that we’ll never forget all of our rich experiences living in Germany. But with my memory as holey as a colander, I know better.

The King of the World and His Schultüte

On Friday Luke celebrated his Einschulung, or first day of first grade. And when I say, “celebrated,” it is no exaggeration. I’ve never seen anything like this in America.

But let me back up a little. First, just like when Claire started at German school, we had to spend a minor fortune on school supplies, including his new Schulranzen, or sturdy tank-sized industrial-strength backpack with ergonomically correct back supports and reflective safety strips. These are expensive (70 to 150 Euros seems to be the norm) but extremely well-made and expected to last through the entire Grundschule experience (first through fourth grades). Then we had to buy folders and book covers in European sizes (even their paper is skinnier than ours). Then we finished up with glues, colored pencils and watercolor paints that are more like what we would buy in art shops in the States. Again, it’s top quality that is expected to last. Not much is disposable. When a color is used up in the watercolor set, you can buy individual color refills to snap in. The kids use nice pens (fountain pens in second grade and higher) with refills. There is a little elastic strap for each colored pencil, pen, pen refill and eraser in a zip-up folder called a Mäppchen. And Luke’s teacher color-codes the book covers and folders for every subject, which really appeals to the teacher in me.

So, after getting supplies in order, we had to make a Schultüte (Shool-toot- eh) or Zuckertüte. This is a long cardboard cone that parents fill with candy and toys for the children to carry to their first day of school. Luke and I used a pattern to make a cool monkey one. Some kids had really elaborate Schultüte with things like 3-D robots, ballerinas, soccer players, flowers, feathers, and superheroes.

The day before the Einschulung, we went to get Luke’s hair cut and the barber put in blue temporary hair dye. He loved it so much that he wanted to keep it in for the first day of school. The next day when we woke up, though, most of the dye had rubbed out. So I took blue finger paint and mixed it with hair gel and reworked it to his satisfaction. He then continued to fuss over his hair like a teenage girl all day, and worried that if it rained his new do might fall flat.

Okay, now, let me get back to the first day of school. In Germany this is a really big deal. Daddies take off of work. Grandparents drive in from out of town. In our town, the festivities begin in the town church, where there was an ecumenical blessing and prayer service to start the school year. The local churches gave each child a hard-bound picture bible, made with pictures of crafts and drawings done by local children, many of whom are friends of ours.

After the service, we all processed to the city hall for a brief presentation by the principal and parent group president. Then the older kids in the school choir sang some international songs (in several languages) to welcome the new students. Then the classroom teachers took the kids to their classrooms for half an hour to get settled while the parents had coffee and cake in the courtyard. Each child was presented a hardbound story book by one bank, a lunch box by another bank, and a fresh-baked pretzel by the town bakers.

But that’s not all. All of the neighbors gave Luke gifts that day too. He got a mini Schultüte full of candy and school supplies, 15 Euros, a packet of alphabet noodle soup, a fresh-baked raspberry torte, and a gift certificate to a book store. It felt like a birthday.  We were all amazed.

That night Luke put on his gold cardboard crown leftover from his sixth birthday party, with his blue hair poking out of the top.  He crawled into bed and said, “Mom, today I feel like I am king of the whole world.”

How wonderful that starting school made him feel special and empowered instead of intimidated. And how absolutely refreshing it is to see a community really celebrate education. I couldn’t imagine a more fitting beginning to a school career.

Laying to Rest

Yesterday I attended my first funeral in Germany. Cancer had defeated Herr Weber, the gentleman who lived across from us. All of us neighbors gathered to support his wife. Together we bought flowers for the funeral, signed a card and collected money for her. Then we all went to the burial yesterday. I couldn’t believe how many of us neighbors came. Once again I was impressed with the community spirit of my little neighborhood.

My friend Steffi told me it is traditional for every guest to bring a single flower to throw into the grave, so I cut a lovely red rose from our garden. I worried that the color might be inappropriate since red roses are to me a symbol of romantic love. But my neighbor Monica said that the man would have loved it.
It was a cold, rainy day. But during the indoor part of the service, a solitary ray of sunlight illuminated the white lilies and roses by the casket. It was lovely. Then while we were gathered outside for the burial, a hawk kept flying circles above us in the sky. I found that poetic, too.

After the burial we went to a local hotel for cake and coffee, and among my friends the conversation turned to burial traditions and our own ideas about death. They seemed okay with my expression that I don’t want anyone to wear black at my funeral. I said I would want folks to celebrate both my life and my arrival in paradise. I want joyful music, colorful displays of photographs, and lots of great food.

But when I said I wanted to be cremated, I sensed disapproval. I learned from my friends that cremation is not very common in Germany and that for a good many the practice is still taboo.  Funerary practices are strictly regulated here, and scattering ashes is illegal. A little more common is the burial of ashes at sea. My friend Astrid used to work in an urn factory, and she explained that urns made for that purpose are formed out of a sort of bread dough. Interesting.

Also very different is that most burial plots are leased here for thirty years at a time. If a family doesn’t renew the lease, the remains are dug up. I couldn’t get an answer about what happens to the body after that. That makes cremation sound even more logical to me.

My friend Sara watched the kids while I attended the funeral, but I could tell that they were affected by the idea of it nonetheless. Luke kept asking me about what funerals are like and what happens to bodies when we die (incidentally, he wants to be fed to fishies, but like our neighbors, he is horrified by the idea of cremation). And Claire woke up last night in tears because she had a nightmare that she was lost and couldn’t find her parents.

Coincidentally, yesterday was Dave’s and my fourteenth wedding anniversary. There is nothing like watching a widow grieving to remind a couple to value every minute together. Of course, unless we pull a “Thelma and Louise” and die together, one day one of us will have to carry on living without the other. Dave says he’ll probably go first since he is seven years older than me and because women usually live longer. But I say he’ll probably live longer because he is in better shape and I’m the one with high blood pressure and a lethal chocolate and French fry addiction. But either way, it’s good to have a bag full of memories to sustain whichever one of us is left, until we are reunited on the other side. That is good to remember when we get annoyed with each other, as all couples do.

So the four of us celebrated both Herr Weber's life and our anniversary by candlelight, eating homemade tortilla soup served on Sesame Street placemats. It may not have been all that romantic, but it made sense to include our children as an expression of our love for each other. And it was nice. Nobody even spilled their milk or had to be reminded more than twice to use their napkin.

At the end of the day, I think every one of us felt like we needed a hug. And those I was more than happy to provide.

Ch ch ch ch ch ch changes...

I was biking back from the market this morning when it occurred to me just how much life has changed for us in the 16 months that we've lived in Germany. We’re living greener, less privately, and a whole lot slower. It's all good.

Take shopping, for instance. Back in Colorado I drove my big SUV (well, it was an Aztek, more of a big ugly half-breed between an SUV and a minivan that my uncle called “a Birkenstock on wheels”) five or ten miles to a grocery store, loaded up my cart while drinking a Starbucks coffee, checked out with credit card and let a bagger stuff my items into plastic bags. Now I grab my canvas shopping bags, my backpack or my bike basket and I cycle or walk a few blocks to the local farmer’s market or grocery store, where I pay cash and bag my own groceries in reusable bags and go on my merry way.

Back home I used to drive my kids to school. Now they walk.

There if the kids wanted to ride bikes, we had to load them up in the car and drive them to a safe, flat area that wasn’t on the side of a mountain. Here, the first thing the kids do after school is jump on their bikes or scooters and go riding on the bike path by our house. Oh, and Dave and I bike nearly every day too. We hadn’t done that in years.

We can’t be so loud living in a Doppelhaus (duplex). That's hard for us.

In the mountains we had tons of storage space, so I squirreled away tons of craft supplies, gift wrap, clothes and junk in our many closets. Here, in a house with no closets, we live cleaner, more simply, with less stuff. But it is still more cluttered than any German house I have been in.

Walking around half-dressed was not a big deal in a country house with huge trees and wide spaces between me and the neighbors. Now I have to wear a robe and pull down the shades so the neighbors can’t see in.

I used to have a cat and a dog to cuddle, feed, play with and clean up after. Now I just have the kids and Dave for that.

My calendar was filled with volunteer obligations. I was always at MOPS, at the church, or at the schools. Now my calendar is filled with errands, kids’ school activities and travel plans.

Dave hated stumbling over coils of pipe and tape when I owned Hoopdydoo. Although I made a lot of hoops when we first got here, I haven’t in a long while. I don’t even get out to hoop much anymore, which is evident by the jiggle in my middle.

I always used to have a deep freezer full of local bison meat and roasted chilies from the Chili Festival in Pueblo. Now I have a tiny freezer and I barely have room for ice cubes (which we don’t really use anymore either).

I’m not taking nearly as much medicine for my blood pressure.

If I kept my workout clothes on all day back home, nobody thought anything of it. People don’t do that here. If I am still in my tennis shoes or yoga pants late in the day, my friends always ask me if I’m just going to work out.

Colorado had two seasons: blue skies with snow on the ground or blue skies with grass. Here we have four distinct seasons: a brilliant, bursting spring; a green, often rainy summer; a colorful fall; and a cold, gray winter. I don’t miss the surprise June snowfalls, but I love the variety.

And that’s just scratching the surface. The biggest changes are in us. Now Claire is completely fluent in German, and Luke and I are getting there. Dave is trailing, but studies when he can.

We get to travel to fun places like Malta, London, Spain, and France. As a family we get to experience new foods, traditions and cultures together.

Best of all, our marriage is as strong as ever. Dave and I have much more time for each other now that he doesn’t travel nearly as much. We play, laugh, connect and have fun together. I think part of that is living in a rented new house instead of an antique one that needed lots of constant TLC. Our free time is ours, and we spend it without a hammer and paintbrush in our hands.

But I think it’s also getting to neutral ground where we had to start over and reinvent ourselves in a new place. For two years after he returned from Iraq, we couldn’t seem to shake that weird dynamic that our friends, home, and life were mine and that he had to somehow figure out how to reintegrate back into all of it. It’s a common post-deployment problem that we somehow thought we’d be immune to. But that's gone now. We make friends together, make choices side by side, and hold equal parenting authority. That is huge, and it makes life sweeter for all of us.

So yes, I’m homesick sometimes. I miss my family and feel really bummed when I miss out on weddings, funerals, birthday parties and reunions. I miss my friends. I miss my gourmet kitchen. I miss using credit cards, shopping on Sundays, and being allowed to volunteer in the kids’ schools. I miss saying, “Hello, pretty mountain” every day when we passed Pikes Peak. Sometimes I wish I could run errands without having to lug my German-English dictionary around. I would give my left pinkie toe for some decent Tex Mex.

But all in all, we’re having the time of our lives. I don’t want to blink and miss a second of it.

Back on the Wagon

For the past few months I’ve had some sort of weird mental block when it comes to blogging. Maybe it’s partly because a girlfriend showed me a semi-nude photo of herself that she had framed as a gift and said, “You aren’t going to mention this in your blog, are you?” (which I guess I just did, but I didn’t use her name and I won’t tell you who she is, so don’t ask). I started to worry that I was talking too much about people’s personal lives and I didn’t want to be a space invader. Or maybe it was that winter depression thing. My brain mimics the sun. When the sun shines, so do I. When clouds cover the sun, then my mind fogs up too. It was a cold, gray winter and we have had a lot of gray summer days too. But no, that’s not really it. I think that my mother really nailed it when we talked the other day. I was whining about “needing to blog but not having time” and she said, “It’s Facebook. Now you tell your stories on Facebook so you don’t have to blog.” By George, I think she’s on to something.

Nearly every day I catch up with friends, update my profile, or upload pictures to Facebook. Because I have told my stories in snippets to various people, I feel like I have told them to everyone. But each person I speak to only gets a facet of the tale. I need to sit down and write a narrative of these special years so we can look back later on. I’m just too busy living this life to write about it. Or so I tell myself.

So let’s see...highlights...

Well, we went to Malta in November, which was fabulous. We spent nine days and just barely saw everything we wanted. My only recommendation would be to go at a warmer time of year. We did enjoy two good beach days, but the rest of the time was gray and windy. More on Malta another time.

We got to the States over Christmas, which was great but exhausting. We crammed five states and seeing both sides of the family into a three-week trip. Add that to the fact that we had to lug half of Santa's sleigh in our suitcases, we had to pack for two climates (Wisconsin and Alabama) and the fact that Claire had to go back to school with jet lag the day after our return, and you have one tired family. We decided that this year we’ll stay here in Germany for Christmas and visit the States in the summer next time (sadly, not until 2010).

We spent a week in Italy, including Venice. That was a dream come true. And we loved our week in Malaga, Spain this May. We spent time on the beach, in the mountains, and at Alhambra and other amazing historical sites. That was exactly the "chillaxing" kind of vacation we wanted.

The exciting news is that many of our loved ones have been able to visit us this past year.
In March enjoyed a visit from Dave’s brother Chris and his family. They stayed for nearly two weeks and we took them on excursions to Bavaria and Switzerland. Luke and Claire loved playing with their cousins. They were sad to see them go. Then my folks came out for three weeks in April. We also took them to Bavaria and to Strasbourg, France, and I planned a train trip for them to Vienna and Venice. They had a ball. I cried like a baby when they left, knowing it would be a year and a half until I'd see them again.

Then our niece Alice (Dave’s brother’s daughter) is coming for the month of August. She has offered to be a live-in babysitter in exchange for travel opportunities. I’m not sure yet what adventures we’ll take her to experience, but we are looking forward to seeing her.

My sister says she is trying to plan a trip here, and my cousin Patrick is coming here next year too for a sporting event. The Newberry Inn may not be five-star, but it’s clean (mostly) and comfortable. The food is pretty good (if I say so myself), and you can’t beat the price (helping with dishes). So y’all come. We’re still keeping the steins cold.

Okay now, I'm gonna post this before I lose my nerve. It's like dieting or exercise: You just have to start somewhere. So here I go.