Robert

I have a lot of really great memories of you, Mom, but most of them don’t make long stories.

I remember how awesome it is to be taken care of by you. A few memories have stuck with me here. I remember you letting me get away with not taking a nap when you made Jake and Anna do it. I remember you picking me up from school and letting me park myself in front of the television to watch Kratt’s Creatures and Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego. I remember having chicken pox and getting a dinosaur pillowcase. I remember running my bike into the tree out front in Roselle and hurting myself. I remember Jake and me both getting sick and staying home from school one day. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain he had found a twenty dollar bill on the ground and you went out and bought us Legos with that money. We spent the afternoon with fevers, in our room, building Legos and being waited on because you always wanted to make sure we got better quickly. I’ll always miss being taken care of when I’m sick because you were patient and you waited on me hand and foot. You even still do, sometimes, like when you brought me soup and took me to Urgent Care a few months ago. I’ve been spoiled by you and being sick is much more miserable without you around. You always make me feel better.

You didn’t and don’t only take care of me when I’m sick, though. There have been plenty of non-illness related instances that will stick in my memory forever. When Becky, my first girlfriend/mistake, broke up with me, you sat with me in my dark room and scratched my back while I cried into my pillow for what seemed like hours. When Dorothy and I broke up, you couldn’t get me out of bed for school, but you let it go pretty quickly when you found out why I was so upset. You spent that day checking on me periodically and you even went out to buy me chicken parmesan, which I almost immediately threw up. Thank you so much for that. When I was moving to Flagstaff for the first time, you were very encouraging. It was terrifying to me and you never lost faith that I could do it. I remember my first drive up to Flag, about an hour in I called you in tears because I didn’t know how I could leave everything I really knew behind. You made me pull off the road and kept reassuring me, kept telling me that everything would be okay, until I calmed down enough to get back on the road and finish the drive.

A lot of my memories about you involve reading, because you love to read and you really helped me to understand how important reading truly is. You took us to the library so often that I practically knew my way around the entire place. You got us interested in the summer reading program and you helped me find books other than Animorphs to fill my time. It is because of you that I have such a deep love for fiction. It is quite possibly your influence that got me interested in working at a bookstore in the first place, and I still have a library card. Harry Potter provided some of the most memorable parts of my childhood and it amazes me, looking back, that you managed to get us to sit still (mostly) and listen to you read the majority of a series that is so long. Thinking about the first few books always makes me smile, and I cannot read any bit of the series without hearing your voice in my head. You have a wonderful reading voice. Thank you for reading to us.

There are a few more little things that I can remember, like Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, breakfast in bed, passages from the Bible and dancing in the living room, but the most important thing that I can say about my childhood is that you have always encouraged me to be my best. You have never lost faith in me. You’re always patient and helpful and that makes you this amazing, wonderful person. You have helped me so much. I guess I’ll try to call more. I love you.