#366

Today is Saint Eric’s day. Seriously.




Eric was a Swedish king about whom very little is known. He reigned for 5 years before being murdered at age 41 by a rival claimant to the throne. It is said that a fountain sprung from the earth where his head landed after he was beheaded. He codified the laws of his kingdom which became known as King Eric’s law. He also did much to promote Christianity in his land and in Finland. He is the patron saint of Stockholm and featured on the seal of the city.



My Eric was a New Jersey boy who would have loved to be a king. Not much is known about him in the greater world, but this blog will hopefully change that. He was not murdered, but died young and unjustly. A fountain of tears was seen in his hospital room. He created laws in his world. Laws such as:



1. Transcend climate—Wear what you want regardless of the weather.



2. It’s ok, in fact it’s preferable, to eat Doritos or a bag of popcorn for dinner. Dessert can be a mix of melted Milky Ways and Goldfish crackers.



3. An apartment does not need a couch, but a reading room is a must.



4. When buying presents for children, the larger and louder the better.



5. When buying presents for everyone else, be generous.



6. Do what you love to do even if everyone else doubts your way.



7. Let your love for your family and friends be known.





He is the patron saint of my heart and my family. He is incredibly missed and will never be forgotten.



Thank you for reading and supporting me through this journey. Please continue to follow me at my new home, LITTLE MANic where I’ll continue to write about my life, my boys and of course, Eric.

#365 Camouflage

I am almost done. This is the second to last post in this blog. There are so many things I could write about today.




I could talk about how it feels to be so close to the end, certainly there are many conflicting emotions.



I just got back from a weekend in Savannah where my parents, husband, uncle and I scattered my grandmother’s ashes. We put some of them in my parent’s backyard, with Eric’s. It was incredibly emotional and worthy of a blog post.



I could shamelessly plug my friend Sarah’s blog, Lunch Box Mom, for several reasons. It’s an excellent blog all around, but today’s is all about me and my blog.



But what I really want to talk about is camouflage.



Yup, camouflage.



Eric had a camouflage outfit before you could buy it in any store. He was obsessed with all things military and my mom went to the Army Navy Surplus Store and bought him camouflage. It didn’t come in kid’s sizes so she had to take it in and shorten it and she gradually let it out and lengthened it as he grew so he was able to wear it for years. Eric flirted with ROTC in college and tried to become a Marine JAG in law school. I don’t think he really ever got over his military dreams; his knees were what kept him a civilian.



My seven year old informed me last week that he intends to go into the army when he grows up. He has a highly formed sense of justice and wants to help defend our country and others who can’t defend themselves. I can’t say I’m thrilled about this career choice, I don’t want my son in harm’s way, but he’s only seven, maybe he’ll grow out of it. At the moment I’m choosing to support him. I got him some camouflage shorts. Luckily for him they do make kid’s sizes now because I’m not the seamstress my mother is. Whenever I see him in them, I think about Eric.



I haven’t told him about Eric’s military ambitions, I really don’t want to encourage him and that might just do it. He loves being compared to Uncle Eric. I think I’ll just keep this comparison to myself.



Oh, and you really should check out Lunch Box Mom’s blog both for me and because I think you‘ll find her other posts informative, interesting and entertaining. You can find it here.



Stayed tuned for the last installment of this blog coming this week

#364 The Green Dodge Dart

My seven year old reminded me of an Eric story that I had temporarily forgotten yesterday. We were packing the car in preparation for a trip to Savannah and he asked if he could sit in the driver’s seat while he waited for us to finish. I automatically said no, but that he could sit in the front passenger seat. When he asked me why I realized it was because of Eric.




When Eric and I were little my dad had a green Dodge Dart that he bought from a dealership called Green Dodge. That always made me laugh. He bought it before I was born and I remember thinking that made the car ancient. There was no air conditioning and no power windows. There were pennies on the floor of the front passenger seat that I was (frustratingly) not allowed to touch. They were there for good luck.



One day the car was parked in our driveway on a small slope and Eric was playing in the driver’s seat. I don’t know if he accidentally released the emergency brake or if it wasn’t set or really what happened, but all of a sudden the car was moving. The windows were rolled down and I can still see my dad clinging to the top of the car door as he ran along with it trying to stop the car. The car was probably 10 feet from a stone wall and luckily my dad didn’t get pinned between the car and the wall and the wall stopped the car. No one was injured but no one was allowed to play in the driver’s seat anymore either. Including my children.

#363 Crazier Than Me

I think we have officially established that left to my own devices while stuck on the couch feeding a baby I will watch junk television. I think Eric would be proud of me. After all if it was on TV he liked it. He introduced us to “Trading Spaces”, “SpongeBob Squarepants” and “Reno 911”.




The other day I found “18 Kids and Counting”. Clearly this was a rerun because the current version of the show is “19 Kids and Counting”. What couch potato could pass this by??? 18 kids?? Who is crazy enough to do that? How do you feed them? How do you transport them? How do you not run screaming into the woods and never come back????



The episode I watched was one where they were doing a fun run for some charity. I confess I don’t remember what the cause was. I do remember that they were all running in jeans because they believe that God doesn’t want them to show their thighs. Ok, but what does God have against lighter fabrics?? At least mom, who was pregnant (isn’t she always?), wasn’t running, but the rest were.



The father took the race as a challenge and was trying to beat his children to the finish line. They interspersed footage of him running with him and the kids commenting on his run. He had a hard time with it. He was admittedly out of shape and running full out for the first time in a long time. I was terrified. He was panting and wheezing and in the commentary stated that he felt like he was going to die. This is not a risk he needs to take! He has 18 ½ kids!!



Well of course he didn’t die. He finished and recovered his breath and decided to train a little more before the next one.



After I recovered my breath I decided that the most remarkable thing about this family is that all of the kids names start with J. Now that’s a challenge!

#362 Dick Deadeye Bites the Dust

I took my seven year old to his first opera last night. Opera Carolina is putting on HMS Pinafore, a Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta and last night was the final dress rehearsal. They call that performance student night and for a steep discount you can bring, well, students.




I’m not a huge opera fan. I love musical theatre but I’ve never really gotten into opera. Still, I like Gilbert and Sullivan and thought an opera in English would be a good way to introduce the art form. We both liked it. The production was a good one and he seemed to be able to mostly follow the story. I helped when necessary. His favorite part was, of course, when Dick Deadeye kept falling or getting pushed off of the ship, but then again, he’s seven.



Mostly I’m just glad he liked it. I gave him the option to leave at intermission since it was getting late and the bus comes early, but he wanted to finish it out so we did.



I think my first opera might have been when Eric bought my husband and me tickets to the opera in Paris. I honestly can’t remember what we saw, but it was a magical night. We were in Paris (which is a good start) we got all dressed up, went out for a nice dinner and we went to the opera. We were young and in love and cultured. It felt good. And we never would have done it without Eric.



I think Eric would like that I took my son to the opera. He was more into it than I was. So I did it partly for Eric, partly for me and partly for my son. I like that combination.

#361 Suzanne's Journey

The fickle finger of fate has struck again. After weeks of suspecting it from her hints on facebook I found out that a friend of mine from high school has cancer. It’s not just any cancer either; it’s a very aggressive form of cervical cancer. It’s really scary. This is not supposed to happen to people my age. Just like nothing was supposed to happen to Eric.




While we were friends in high school we did not keep in touch after graduation. As with so many other friends, facebook has brought us back together. In this way I have learned what an amazing person she has become and gotten to know about her two wonderful boys and her fiancé. That’s right. She’s supposed to get married in September. To give you a hint of the personality in this one little package, there will be a tattoo artist at the wedding. Permanent party favor anyone? I say there will be a tattoo artist because there will be a wedding. She decided this today as she got the proof for her invitation. You too can read about her journey on her blog.

Wedding Excitement Turns to Cancer Treatment

I know she is scared. I know she is mourning the loss of being able to carry future children—although not necessarily the children themselves thanks to reproductive technology and a borrowed womb. I know she is worried for her boys. I also know she is strong and has the resources and support to get through this.



My mom asked me this morning why she would post about this on facebook. My answer was for the support of all of her friends. Without facebook I would never have known about this and been able to offer my support. Facebook brought me (and still brings me) a ton of support surrounding Eric. It may seem very exposed to my mom, but to me it’s a community. It brings together people from every stage of my life and lets me interact as much or as little as I please. It also lets me visit Eric’s page any time I want.



Suzanne, I wish you success and support on this journey you’d rather not be taking. Your community is here as well.

#360 I'm Good With That

I was driving through the city this morning and there was an intersection that was blocked off by police. I was stopped at a light so I tried to see what was going on. It looked like a ceremony of some sort. There were a lot of policemen and a lot of people on bikes. It looked like most of them had their heads bowed. Did someone die? Was someone on a bike hit by a car? Was it a policeman? Who knows? It could have been a bike safety rally, but my brain immediately jumped to memorial service. How our life experiences change us.




I was on my way to get a massage. My husband suggested I get one before I go back to work and a livingsocial deal came around and I jumped on it. Guess the name of my masseuse. Yup, Eric.



So half my day is gone (the massage was amazing by the way) and I spent a lot of it thinking about Eric. I bet I’ll think about him for most of the rest of the day too.



I’m good with that.

#359 Mother's Day Again

Mother’s Day. It was yesterday and it was the second one without Eric.




Growing up we always had a big Mother’s Day celebration. We would have another family over complete with grandmothers and of course my grandmothers were there. It was usually the first barbecue of the year and there were kids running around, a volley ball net set up in the backyard, and of course gifts for the moms and grandmoms.



Yesterday was a little different. We still celebrated but the crowd was a lot smaller. It was my parents and my family. No Eric, none of my grandmothers. No volley ball net.



We still had a good time. My husband, parents, the baby and I spent the afternoon watching the golf tournament and the big boys got to play with one of their favorite babysitters. During the tournament there was a moment of silence in memory of Seve Ballesteros a golfer who died three days before. During that moment I thought about him and his surviving family. I thought about Eric and I thought about all the moms out there who have ever lost a child.



After the tournament we barbecued and ate outside. The weather was beautiful and the food was good.



I loved my gifts from my boys (a framed photo of the three of them, gift certificates for books and Starbucks, a story written about me by my oldest, a homemade bookmark, a homemade flower and a beautiful painted rock) and my mother liked her gifts.



I didn’t know if I should bring up Eric or not. Part of me feels like I need to be his stand-in, to remind my mother that if he were here he would be celebrating her too. But she knows how much he adored her and she doesn’t need reminding. He’s always there. I didn’t bring him up, but I know we were all thinking about him and missing him.

#358 It just happened

I ran yesterday. I didn’t plan to nor did I want to. Those of you who read regularly will know that since Eric the thought of running terrifies me. I’ve never really liked it anyway and I thought I would never do it again. I’m making my husband jump through all kinds of hoops (stress echo scheduled for next week) before I’ll let him run. But it happened.




I was out for my usual walk through the neighborhood. It was overcast when I left but I didn’t think much about it. It’s been overcast a lot lately and frankly it’s nice to walk in that weather because it’s cooler.



About halfway through my walk I started hearing thunder. It got darker and darker and I started to feel ridiculous in my sunglasses. I was almost home when the skies opened.



I ran home. I took out my ear buds, cradled my iPhone to my shirt, mentally thanked my parents for minding the baby so he wasn’t with me and ran. It was a stretch of road that I vividly remember running with Eric and resenting him the whole time for goading me into running and out of my comfort zone of walking. He and my friend were way ahead and I was panting behind. But I did it.



By the time I got out of the shower yesterday the sun was shining.



Was that you Eric?

#357 Laughter

It’s the weekend of the Wells Fargo Championship golf tournament and my parents are visiting. Since we’ve moved to Charlotte they’ve been coming for the tournament and we all go together. It’s a lot of fun.




They arrived last night and so far have seen my oldest son test for a new belt in his Tae Kwon Do class (He got his high yellow belt!) and one of his little league games, but no golf. They’ll get some of that today.



Last night after the game and putting the big boys to bed we were eating Indian food and talking. It was very relaxed and we were all joking around. I think I have mentioned before that when we get together my mother usually ends up being the target of our teasing and last night was no different. My husband got in a few great zingers. Luckily my mother takes it well. All that was missing was Eric.



At one point I said “I think somewhere Eric is smiling”. It took effort to say it. There was effort to acknowledge that he was missing, to bring it up and remind everyone although I know we were all thinking it. Then I was also braving the subject of where he is now which none of us know and probably wouldn’t agree on anyway. But I still said it and I’m glad I did. I’m going to keep bringing him into the conversation.



Is this progress?

#356 Pizza

Eric had tastes both high and low. He was a fan of the finest French restaurant and the dingiest downtown diner. He would eat Chateaubriand or chicken fried steak with equal relish. He could also be happy with just a bag of Doritos or microwave popcorn. One thing I never understood though was his love of Dominos Pizza.




We grew up in New Jersey where they make the best pizza in the world. The slices are large, cheesy and greasy. You need to fold it to eat it. The crust is thin, but not too thin. It’s heaven on a plate.



I remember when Dominos first came to our area. It was exciting. Pizza delivered right to your door, oh my! Then we tasted the pizza. Oh my. Not exactly the standard we expected. But Eric loved it. He used to order it just for himself because the rest of us wouldn’t eat it.



When my parents and Eric moved to Thailand he ordered Dominos there too. I can understand that a little bit more since there was no good pizza there and Dominos represented home. But it was still terrible—even worse than in the states.



I never could quite comprehend how Eric could like the travesty of sauce and cheese that Dominos calls pizza, but yesterday my husband found a video that explains it all. If Eric were still here I would have sent him this video and we would have laughed and argued about its validity. Since he’s not here, I’ll share it with you. Credit goes to The Onion, a satirical news service that, ironically, Eric introduced to me.

http://mobile.theonion.com/video/dominos-scientists-testmobile-limits-of-what-humans-will,14252/?mobile=true

#355 Still shocking

It still shocks me when I see something written out with the baby’s full name. I can call him Andrew or Drew all day long and not necessarily have the association with Eric. When I see Andrew Eric written out it reminds me again of why he has his name. We have a sign hanging in the kitchen that my middle child’s school made for him in honor of his becoming a big brother; it has Andrew Eric written out. I have thank you notes with his full name on them. I get baby gifts addressed with his full name. It’s not that I don’t like the name or that it makes me sad it just kind of jolts me.




I don’t know why this is given that I obviously know what happened and named him that on purpose, but it does. I knew I wouldn’t be able to use Eric as a first name and I’m glad it’s his middle name, but I’m also glad I’m able to avoid it most of the time. Does that make sense?



I love Eric and I love Andrew and I love that Andrew is named for Eric and I’m glad we ordered it the way we did. There will only ever be one Eric in my life and there will only ever be one Andrew even though they share both names.

#354 Help

Many of you have suggested that I publish this blog. I would love to do that. The idea of having the Eric stories and the stories about my boys together in one place really excites me. It also excites me that this journey of mine has the potential to help someone else.




I am new to the world of publishing and am not really sure how to go about this. I had lunch with a good friend of mine today who is also writing a book and she gave me the name of her editor. Is that where I start? Do I need to find an agent first? Do I need to write a book proposal as another of my friends who is already published recommended? I am looking for any and all advice I can get.



As the number of remaining posts to be written dwindles I realize more and more how much I’m going to miss this forum. While I still plan to blog, I’d feel a lot better if I knew this project wasn’t really over. Publishing it would be a way of continuing it without actually adding to it. I think that would be really good for me.





I sometimes wonder how Eric would feel about all of this. I think he would approve. I think he would like the preservation of my memories even if he might remember some of them differently. I think he’d be ok with me spreading our stories. I know he’d be ok with anything that helped me.



If nothing else it would be a repository of memories for my kids. And that might be the best thing of all.

#353 A Good Death

Osama bin Laden is dead. How could I not write about that? Writing about anything else but that today just seems superfluous. On the one hand I know what it is like to grieve and being happy about someone’s death, a family’s loss, seems callous. On the other hand, we’re talking about a man who orchestrated the deaths of thousands. So, hooray!




This is the largest single event since Eric. I know I would be talking to him about it were he still here. I’m sure we would relive our 9/11 memories (I was working in the hospital, he was working in Riyadh) and talk about where the world goes from here. I miss his unique perspective on things.



Personally I’m worried that bin Laden left instructions in case of his death. I hope our homeland security personnel and their equivalents around the world are paying attention.



I know what it is like to lose a good person. I hope no one else learns what this is like because of bin Laden anymore.

#352 Not Too Busy

Our weekends have been really packed lately. I can only imagine what it will be like when we have three boys who have extracurricular activities.




This weekend my mother-in-law is visiting. Friday afternoon we had some work being done in the kitchen so we went out to dinner and for frozen yogurt afterwards. Saturday (yesterday) we had three little league games spread out throughout the day, two for my 7 year old and a tee-ball game for my 4 year old. I fed the baby while sitting on a blanket in the grass three times. I think I get extra mommy points for that. I also had concession stand duty for one of the games. My husband was coaching all of the games.



The last game was at 5:00 and ended at roughly the boys’ bedtime, but since we hadn’t eaten dinner we all went out to eat again. Then we came home and pretty much all fell into bed.



Today my oldest has religious school and then his religious school chorus is singing at the dedication of a Holocaust memorial statue. After that I don’t think we have anything planned until tomorrow, but we’ll probably take the boys to ride their bikes for grandma or something else like that. We’re planning on grilling for dinner tonight.



Last night we went out to dinner at a fantastic local burger place. They had televisions going and NASCAR was on. They put up a picture of one of the drivers, Jimmie Johnson. My 7 year old looked at me and said, “Hey, that guy looks like Uncle Eric”. I didn’t see the resemblance except for a similar 5 o’clock shadow type beard, but it made me happy that he did. Even when we’re not thinking about Eric, we are. All of us.