I split my post in half today. If you missed the first one, scroll down to find it or choose "Older Post" in the options at the bottom of this page. That's the 1997 part. If you're just now joining in on my "18 Years Ago" series, have a look at the left sidebar for the Blog Archive for May. There's a post for every day!
Here, today, in Flein, Germany, we had a pleasant day. While walking this evening I wondered about the passage of time and the paths we've taken along the way. I try to picture Simon in his last year of high school here in Germany. But then I wonder, would we be living in Germany now if Simon had lived? Even further back, where would we be if he hadn't gotten sick? Maybe we really would have moved to Canada in 2002, where our kids could have grown up near their Lautens cousins. That's fun to picture.
Meanwhile, Markus, Miriam and I really do live in Germany (along with our kitties Sam and Simon), and we're doing OK. Miriam is busily preparing for tomorrow's physics test, so we postponed plans for a longer hike in honor of Simon's birthday. Instead, we went outside to watch today's Trollinger (Half)Marathon pass through our neighborhood. Markus and Miriam have been running in the 5-10K range this spring, and I have a feeling they got inspired this morning. It's a somewhat hilly course, but overall it passes through beautiful scenery. Here's a link to a
map of the course.
The full marathoners passed through first (468 of them). About an hour later we went out to watch the half marathoners (5,000+). They came in hoards, rounding the corner where we stood cheering them on. We kept an eye out for runners from
GGS, the business school where Markus is a professor. After a while, I began noticing students from my English classes at the
DHBW. It was fun to pick them out and give them a shout. It did me good to feel connected with young people who are not much older than Simon would be today. As my teaching career has progressed, I have managed (without direct intention) to be teaching students about Simon's age. The year I left the Salt Lake Arts Academy (2010), Simon would have been in 7th grade, just like the group of kids I had as mentees. When I started teaching college students in 2012, I hadn't considered at first that Simon would catch up to their age group, too. I've been grateful both times.
If you've kept up with my posts leading up to Simon's birth in 1997, you may have expected a birth story today. But I've decided to save that for another day. After all, on the day of a birth, you are in an amazing bubble, away from chronology and mental processing. I wanted to leave it that way today. Birth stories come when you get a little distance on the events. In other words, the series won't be ending here!
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| May 17, 2015 |
We've got candles lit, and I had a facetime call with my family in Ohio this evening. My sister, Julie, and her daughter, Margot, were visiting, as well as my brother, David. My parents also keep a Simon candle, and the five of them each lit one and spoke about Simon. Julie said that she pictures him joining her son, Nathan, at McGill University in the fall. In the photo to the left, you can see a photo of Simon and Nathan together in 2003. Margot remembers playing video games with Simon and thinks they'd have a good conversation about this year's new releases. David said he could have used Simon's muscle over the weekend because they'd been doing some lifting and carrying. My mother lit a yellow candle and said Simon had always called it "gelb" instead of "yellow," picking the easier of his two words. "Red, green, gelb, blue..." (I don't remember that detail, but my father corroborated it.) My father remembers playing whiffle ball with Simon and the joyful way Simon rode the red wagon down the front walk and made a quick turn at the bottom of the hill.
For a look back at birthdays with Simon, you can pop over to
May 17th Coming Up (2011). Today I made a commemorative strawberry pie for at least the third year in a row. Simon's birthday comes in the middle of strawberry season, and we can get them from nearby fields. We set a place for Simon at all three meals today, a tradition Markus started last year, and one I rather like.
Would Simon like a pie like this, with a Super Simon heart? Who's to know. But I enjoyed making it and thinking of the boy I knew and the grown young man I try to imagine.
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Birthday strawberry pie
May 17, 2015 |
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