Last year, I didn’t write about you publicly at all. (This pandemic took over—it sometimes seems—everything.) But last year, I planted two blueberry bushes, and this year, they flowered. Today, thirteen years after you’ve gone and three years after Uncle Peter too, I have been thinking about blueberries.

I remember being maybe 7 or 8, walking along with you and my siblings in the woods, hunting for berries. We followed you from not-too-far away as we left the safety of forged trails and trekked under a canopy of trees. We brushed aside pricker bushes and swatted at bugs as you became an intense seeker, your eyes bluer and your gate wider. You seemed to have to force yourself to slow down so our shorter legs could keep up. When you spotted that crop of wild berries, a big grin spread across your face, your gapped front teeth jutting out as you hollered, “Look! See?” You encouraged us to pick from the branches and taste the fresh, feral fruit. What a delicious adventure!

So this date remains a reminder, each year, of what you left us—things like a true love of blueberries. (atp)

 

Birthday Cake

Mom told me this past weekend that you didn't have cake on your birthday as a kid. The vision of you devouring one, two, sometimes three slices of chocolate cake each birthday became more brilliant in my memory when I learned this. You'd polish off that cake -- and ice cream -- with the glee of a child. And then you'd lick the plate. You'd belly-laugh after that plate was clean and tease us if we were a little embarrassed by it. I can see your smile and hear you laugh, still.

You got sillier and more open about being silly as you aged, and on what would have been your 80th birthday, I'm feeling a bit sad not to know what it would have been like to see you eat cake today. Maybe your hair would have finally gone white. Maybe you would have false teeth or a bigger belly. Maybe you would have been sicker or frailer. Maybe you would have been even sillier or maybe you'd have lost your memory.

Not knowing is a part of grief and loss that can make us feel more distracted by what would have than by what was. Maybes I can't answer to, so I try to stick to cake. When I tell people about how you loved chocolate cake on your birthday, maybe more deeply because it was something you didn't get to enjoy as a child, they take part in your memory and spirit. Friends send me photos of chocolate cake they're enjoying today, drinks they're toasting you with, and similar notes and images of love for the good stuff.

I wish you got to turn 80, Dad, but I love that you live on in all of us, in all of the cake that was gobbled up today.

-atp

Ten Years

Ten years ago, we lost you. Ten years ago, everything changed.

Ten years filled with memories, without you. Ten years filled with changes to families and relationships and love, without you.

Ten years of remembering you and loving you and honoring you. Ten years to be reminded life is short and beautiful and unkind and unfair and joyful.

Ten years of missing you, Dad, is a lifetime and a moment at once, but it's true every day.

(atp)

Celebrating

Dad would have been 78 today. Today, I celebrate him with joy and silliness, with chocolate cake smashed into my face and a nutty grin on as I scoop more ice cream onto my plate, with laughter and love for family. I celebrate him with singing and dancing in the living room to his favorite tunes. I celebrate the life he gave me and the features on my face that prove we're related. I celebrate him with dreams of a future that's better than what he had but honors what he gave. Grief won't let me stop missing him, but I won't let it stop me from celebrating him and having this day of his memory as a happy pause and a celebration of his life. I have extra reason to celebrate this year and feel you always at my side, Dad. (atp)

Birthdays Are for Celebrating

A man who taught me to be a witness for others by witnessing his struggles, a man who taught me how to love music by loving music, a man who inadvertently taught me about gender inequality (and equality) by kissing his son as well as his daughters good night, a man who took care of a lot of people because that's what he felt a man should do, and a man who taught me how to be unapologetic about being silly because life is too damn short to get caught up in what other people think--my dad. Celebrating him today on his birthday and all days. (atp)

Roy

On this day in 1939, a beautiful baby boy was born in Saint Francis, Maine to a young couple. He was their first child of  a dozen. I wonder if they knew what they were starting upon his arrival. I may be partial, but I have always thought that their first was their best accomplishment. Others were not of the same caliber somehow, although, also loved much. Happy Birthday # 75 to their son, my husband, my kids' Dad, Grandpa, a/k/a Blue-Eyed Grandpa, brother, cousin, nephew, great nephew, uncle, great uncle, brother-in-law, and friend to many. xos tiab x 75!!!! Hope you're at peace among your loved ones now. more xos and toasts to you. Good Night. Happy Birthday!

September Memories

Today is full of 'em.  xos :-)

Stays the Same

I don’t believe that people change. It’s something I argue with friends and family about. I know that we can learn how to avoid the mistakes we typically make and that we can change habits in order to create change, but I believe that people are pretty much fundamentally who they will always be.

I have a lot to be grateful for because of what stayed the same in Dad, namely his desire to travel. That inspired me, made me curious, and even became a piece of the part of me that refuses to change—the bit that loves to travel and can’t get enough of it. This month, I was in San Francisco. This wasn’t my first trip there. This summer, I’m going to Yellowstone (and a few other places Dad would love). While discussing my upcoming trip to San Francisco earlier this month, Mom told me this:

“Your Dad had been through San Francisco briefly while in the Army. We just got so caught up in California, Arizona and New Mexico that we didn't have time to do it justice….all in all we always wished we'd seen San Francisco and Yellowstone too, but had seen so much of this fabulous country, we were pleased with trip we did make.”

She was describing the trip they took for their honeymoon. Mom still talks about the Grand Canyon, all of these decades later, a wing of that trip.

As I walked all over San Francisco on my last morning there, I appreciated the views a bit more, I sipped my coffee slowly—Dad would have loved how damn strong it was!—and I took my time. When I walked around Paris last spring, I posed for a picture in front of a shop called Pelletier. I smiled as I shivered in the rain and looked at Rodin’s sculptures. I spoke French.  And I took my time.

As the sixth anniversary of Dad’s death arrives, I am making a point to slow down—as I wish time would—and to enjoy the things that don't change.

Same

This year every single day falls on the same day that it did in 2008. :-( It's never easy, but this makes it even more difficult to live with/thru. You are missed. xos

5

It's not possible that 5 years have passed by already without you here, is it? unbelievable, truly. seems like a lot less or a lot more. xos

New Daddy

This is the __ anniversary of the day you became a Daddy for the first time. Reminiscences abound. Thanks! xos

Christmas time 2012

Christmas time is here and New Year's is almost here. You are missed and loved. xos

Birthdays and other days

It's odd or tiresome for some people, perhaps especially for those who haven't lost a parent, the way people who have might linger on certain days. Some might watch a loved one get caught up by what seems like the wind from missing someone who's supposed to go before them anyway, years after they've left. But there are also so many who get it, whether or not they can empathize. For that I'm grateful, on this birthday and on so many other days.

-atp

11/18/12

Happy Birthday to you-ooooou! xos

Historic

On this day, 40 years ago, we were still single........ and the rest, as they say is history! :-)

And the rest.......

On Saturday, September 2, 1972, Jeanne Clarke Russell married Roy Ervin Pelletier at 11:00 A.M.   High Nuptual  Mass at Saint Francis Roman Catholic Church, New Milfrod, CT, as witnessed by family and friends. A reception followed at 1 P.M. at Post 1672 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall, New Milford, CT......they began their life together at their cottage on Wells Road, New Milford, CT,  after a wonderful  three-week honeymoon to the South/Southwest/Northeast road trip....and the rest, as the saying goes....is history. :-)

July 4th

Happy Fourth of July to all. Who'd of thought /known, on the holiday weekend in 1971, what history was being/would be made? We are truely blessed. God Bless America! Hope you get to see fireworks on July 4th., NOT June 29th.,  June 30th.,  July 3rd.,  or July 7th.  this year. Guess we can't presume there ARE going to be fireworks anymore. It's a shame. We can find money for lots of other town, city, state,  federal things, despite economy.  TV telecasts are nice, but not the same.  Be safe and sound wherever you spend it and say hi for me. xos :-)

Proud

You have three children and a grandchild that you were always and are very proud of. They miss you and so does and Maggie and I. Thanks for keeping such good watch over us too. We hope you know how much you were and are loved. Happy Father's Day.  xos

The Only Thing Different

Sitting on your heels, you'd plant yourself on the worn wooden living room floor--sometimes with your shoes still on, sometimes in your white crew socks--in front of your record player. Your fine dark brown hair would fall down across your forehead as you worked at your task, your glasses slipping down your prominent nose, the one you passed down to me. Your shoulders were a bit hunched as you assessed your loot. Records stacked or sitting up in boxes surrounded you. You sometimes sorted them by artist, but often you just seemed to be on a roll with listening to your favorites or locating all of the different versions of the same song. How can I forget old Rolling Stones followed by the later Patsy Cline? I wonder which version of "I Forget to Remember to Forget" you were searching for, now that I know you loved that tune as a young man.

Your reel-to-reel was next to you sometimes too--when you were searching for a memory that must have popped up in a dream or in some passing thought that startled you into pulling out those square boxes, the discs inside holding hours of notes and voices, some of them homemade. Maybe some of them are the recordings you forced your sisters into, orchestrating from the status of eldest brother, playing a role you weren't sure of in most other settings. Now we know you were also in the Radio Club in high school. I wonder who you talked to the most about music and if you fell in love to certain songs. When I think about all of the questions I have stored up, it seems even less fair that I can't ask them.

The living room floor is refinished and a framed photo of you sits on top of the record player. We still think of you there and it seems impossible that four years have passed without your laughter warming up a room and without your deep voice singing along to your favorite music. Four years is too long to be without you so we try to take you everywhere we go. Music seems to be the best place to find you.

-ATP

O'Pelletier

I will be thinking of you especially on Saturday, Roy O'Pelletier. Ah, yes, and I will be wearing some green too! xos :-)