Monday Wanting

Sometimes I look around our house and I’m amazed at how many things of Judi’s we have incorporated into our home.  Some things she brought with her when she moved in, some things we knew we wanted to keep, some things we thought we’d sell.  I’ve gotten to the place where I can sell her things, and we have indeed sold some, but I find it such a comfort to have these glimpses of her.  The Buddha from her alter sits on her cupboard in the media room.  Her beautiful floral rug is on our living room floor.  I didn’t think it would look good in our room but she loved that rug and wanted to bring it with her so we did and found it to be perfect.  The dresser she had as a girl….I remember when it was in the entryway of her Rogers Park apartment….and then in the guest room in her house in South Carolina.  Her huge Redwing crocks, that we were going to sell, now instead sit with firewood in one and newspaper in the other, flanking the fireplace.  The old pine trunk that my parents bought her many years ago at the Naperville Antique show….now holds all our family pictures.  Her dining room table and chairs sit in our dining room, saving the antique chairs the boys were destroying.

When I was sorting papers over the weekend I found drawings of Owen’s from when he was in kindergarten.  It was labeled “At Aunt Judi’s House’ in an adult hand and had a picture of Ernie, me and Leo standing next to each other, while Owen was in Judi’s arms.

It brought me back let me tell you.  We’d always get there somewhat exhausted from the drive….it would be late and the boys tired and Judi would bound out of her house yelling “Leooooo….Owwwwwen” and give them hugs and kisses and she would laugh and laugh.  Then they’d trot downstairs where she always had some little present waiting for them. 

It’s hard to believe how much they’ve grown since she died.  It’s hard to believe that time goes so quickly….that someone can be flesh and blood and then not.

So I look around and see her in her things----her Buddha, her paintings, her furniture….and I remind the boys how much she loved them and to remember  that she had told them that she would always be in their hearts, no matter what. 

And she is in my heart.  But sometimes I want more.