And Then There Were Two

I took my kids to a playdate today, it being spring break and all. It was so good to get out of the house. This spring break has been rough, with both girls being sick and now I have the bug... but it was worth a little suffering through sickness to have the kids release some of that pent-up energy, as well as giving me some "friend" time with the other moms.

I got to thinking about this little "group" of ours, and how it's dwindled. This particular playgroup started about seven years ago when me and another friend from church had our first babies. We became friends, and brought some more friends into the fold from the church, until it was a solid group of 5 families. We had other families come and go from the church, but this group was pretty solid. We had babies from 1998 to 2004 - 12 kids in all.

But my kids learned at a pretty early age that friends come in and out of your lives regularly. The first family moved to Nevada in 2002. It was especially hard on the moms, at that time we all had babies and were such a support system for eachother, could we survive the broken bond? Of course, we're still friends with that family and I try to talk to my friend on the phone regularly and the kids still delight in the occasional visits and pictures we get from the kids.

We were severed again in 2004, when another family moved to Scotland. This one was also very hard, for several reasons. That family had just had twins and with no other family around for them, our "group" loved being the go-to guys for taking care of these two little babies. Whether it was entertaining the oldest daughter or holding a baby while the other was being fed/changed/rocked, we were up for the challenge! Also hard was losing the priest we'd come to love at our church, as he was the "dad" of this family and work took him elsewhere.

Now another is leaving our shrinking group - albeit the family is moving only an hour away and we'll still see them, it does seem like my kids are learning about the value of friendship - not losing friends but keeping them in a different capacity. I want them to remember that these early childhood friends are ones that helped shaped them into who they are (one introduced my youngest daughter to cutting her own hair) and I think it's my responsibility to teach them that friendships don't end just because miles separate them.

Being so young, it's hard to remind them of these kids and keep the young friendships, except through, of course, pictures. (you know I was going there, right?) A friendship album is the perfect way to remind kids of friends, family and experiences. And having them create the album themselves is even more meaningful. My friend who moved to Nevada (now in Indiana) was given a little "Friends from Oregon" album upon her departure in 2002 and tries to keep it up regularly by asking for current pictures of all the kids who live here.

We took this one today, three of these kids will be moving in a couple months. Then, only two families will remain in our town. But the friendships will continue in some capacity because the memories will remain strong.

From Tragedy to Healing

I just finished "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote. I had read it in college and then after seeing "Capote" recently, I had an interest in re-reading it. It was a lot different than I remembered - mostly because I remember being so deeply horrified by it the first time. I think I was so much more naive to the evil and injustices of the big world back then - and (unfortunately) now a senseless mass murder of an innocent family isn't as shocking to me. Sad commentary on "growing up".

There were a few inconsistencies between the book and the movie (imagine that) so I was looking online for some information about the story and all the players. Interestingly I came upon a story about the two surviving daughters of the slain Clutter family. In the 45 years since the tragedy, they have rarely, if ever, given an interview. But LJWorld.com had this to report:

The scrapbooks and stories tell the family's true history.

Within three thick red binders are children's photos, graduation announcements, tidbits of diaries, correspondence through the years and mementos of Herb and Bonnie Clutter's family. Then there are the stories Beverly English, 65, has written about each of her parents -- stories describing everything from what kind of music they enjoyed to how Bonnie would kill and pluck a chicken for dinner.

The scrapbooks and stories portray the family the way no one else has -- certainly not Truman Capote, whose book, "In Cold Blood," told of the Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kan., in November 1959.

"We want to remember our parents in a positive light," said English, one of the family's two surviving daughters, "not the negative."

The positives come in the form of the scrapbooks, loving memories and a number of memorials throughout Kansas. The negatives are the brutal murders of Herb and Bonnie Clutter, their daughter, Nancy, 16, and son, Kenyon, 15, and, to make it all worse, what the daughters and others say are Capote's inaccuracies in describing the Clutter family.

(the story goes on to talk about how the sisters have moved on in their life, and how they are correcting the inconsistencies in the book within their own family)

...The sisters try to pass their family's legacy on to new generations. Since English completed the bulk of the scrapbooks in the late 1980s -- they are an ongoing project, she said -- the younger Clutter descendants have used them to learn about their grandparents. "I'm so glad we did it," Mosier said. "It was a healing thing for both of us. We had laughter with lots of things, and we had tears. But it was just a healing thing."

The result is a written record for the family of what kind of people Herb and Bonnie Clutter were -- something Capote never accomplished.

"It's their life I want to immortalize," English said. "Not the way they died."

I've written in this blog many times about how scrapbooking is a healing process, I just love stories that obviously make a point!

I had trouble with a picture of the week, but after writing this blog I thought I'd do a generational photo, in honor of these two Clutter sisters making scrapbooks so that future generations would have knowledge of the family members that they never knew. Here are my girls with their great-grandmother, who they adore - but someday will need her stories to know who she really is. Happy 85th birthday Grandma-Great!!!

Capturing the Co-ed

I've been nostalgic lately, mostly of the college years. Not that all my memories are good - and I certainly don't want to go back to that time - I'm mostly just remembering little bits of this and that. It made me want to look back at some pictures from that time.

Now it may shock you to know that I still have those pictures in (gasp!) magnetic albums. I have the last 10 years in photo-safe albums, but nothing prior to that. So looking at that album today reminded me (and reinforced, since the pages are all yellow) that I need to do something with these pictures.

I'm actually glad I waited, because sometimes I think time needs to pass before you know what to do with some pictures. I know now what is important to keep, pictures sufficient enough to remind me of the important aspects of my college experience; sorority events, dorm life, road trips and friendships (interestingly enough, I don't have any pictures of classes, professors or studying. Hmmmmm.....) There are some things I don't care to remember and guess what, I don't have to include those things in an album! If pictures harbor painful memories and don't affect the overall experience (in this case, my college life), then I certainly can give myself permission to exclude them.

My goal with a college album is to get them out of the hazardous environment and into a photo-safe album, and to go through and pick out the ones that best define my experience at school.

I just HAD to include a "picture of the week" that shows me during that era - check out the early 90's hair and the pudgy face. Ugh. Here is me and my dear college friend Jen at a popular annual fraternity party.


Okay, to redeem ourselves, here is a picture of us from this past New Year's Eve, 16 years later. I think we're getting better with age (at least our hair is). Notice what I'm holding in BOTH pictures, well, at least I've "classed-up" and am drinking champagne in 2006 instead of... whatever was on tap in 1990.
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