Side Trip down Memory Lane

Okay, so this little story in Jack's blog today doesn't really have much to do with Jack, but it does have to do with me and Lyle and without us we wouldn't have Jack, so I guess there is a connection...

This weekend we went to Sarah's house in Waynesboro and on Sunday night we spent a very fun evening watching home videos from when Ben and Lauren were very little. The video was made in the fall of 2004, right after Ben was born and Lauren was just about the happiest, smiliest toddler you've ever seen.

There are two pieces of background info that will help this story make a little more sense. First, some of you might not know that Lyle never actually got to meet my mom face-to-face. She passed away before he and I started dating, and although it breaks my heart that he's only gotten to know her through the stories we all tell, there's obviously nothing we can do to turn back time. Second, when I first met Lyle I had a huge (actually a HUGE) crush on him. During the 2004-05 school year when I worked as the intern at the BSU at Virginia Tech, my mom heard me talk about Lyle quite a bit. I was definitely "smitten" and just about everyone in the world knew it!

My parents and I spent Thanksgiving of 2004 at Sarah and Nathan's house (then in North Carolina). Nathan got out the video camera and started rolling it just as we all were sitting down for the big dinner. My mom asked us all to go around and say one thing we were each thankful for. I remember thinking at the time how cheesy this was to get on tape. So we started going around the table...Sarah was thankful for Benjamin since he had just arrived two months before. Mom said she was thankful that year just "to be here." When it was my turn, I said I was thankful for all my nieces and nephews and that I was thankful to be back living in Blacksburg.

Mom interjected and said "Oh, come on, Anne...that means 'Lyle!'" and she did the finger quotes sign in the air just to emphasize. In the video, all of us around the table laughed while I blushed, because, of course, she was right.

The laughter in the video mingled with the laughter in Sarah's living room as we watched this scene...and here it is five years later. This little incident was probably less than four minutes long on tape, but in that short time it brought so many feelings to the surface. It brought joy because I love that my mom can still make us laugh, here in 2009. It brought sadness because of the irony of her statement of gratefulness to be with us when we know now that was her last Thanksgiving here on earth. And it brought a bittersweet feeling of thankfulness for me that Lyle could witness in watching her - however briefly - some of the best characteristics of my mom that we all miss...namely, her sense of humor and her ability to always "call a spade a spade."

Watching this video was probably the highlight of my weekend. It brought my mom close to us if only for a few minutes. It was like a belated Mother's Day gift from my mom to me.