homelessness and party hats

Editorial comment- When we were home for Christmas, Elizabeth asked if she could write a guest post for me. I assumed it would be a little tale of our latest escapades or tales from her days living on a farm.

I did not expect it to be an ode to myself.

I did not expect it to include never before published photos of myself.

It makes me squirm a little to post it but it made my heart burst with happiness. I do love having her as a sister even if she sometimes rolls her eyes at my puns.

For three years, Sarah and Annabelle have driven from New York to Massachusetts. They arrive in various states of travel exhaustion.

This time, bedraggled and disoriented, Sarah and Annabelle pulled into our driveway, just before midnight. The GPS had led them to believe that they’d arrive around supper time. This means they’d been traveling for five hours longer than expected.  (I have a theory and it goes like this- In brutal regimes, dictators punish dissenters by telling them to go somewhere using a GPS. They then rig the entire system so that the route the victims follow takes nine hours longer than in the GPS promised. If you’re reading this, current Kim, I’m on to you.)

Travel, especially unexpectedly long travel, can break down even the most hardened criminal. It nearly flattened my two girls this Christmas.

On this particular visit, Annabelle, who has never met a word she didn’t like, wandered silently into the house. She wobbled down the hallway with a Calico Critter in one hand and ketchup and French Fries stuck to the edges of her lips. She drooped into the living room, vaguely hoping to find out if any of the toys were new/rearranged/readily available. The ghost of her party spirit animal floated around at the back of her mind and suggested that she pick up a pretend microphone someone had left invitingly on the living room floor. She bent to pick it up, but she nearly fell over.

When I asked her about her ride, her critter, and her supper at Chick Fila, she looked blankly at me. Food? Chick Fila? She was clearly not herself.

At this point, Sarah pulled herself through the door, carrying a plastic Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup. It was full seven hours ago when she bought it and it was still half full. She has never been one to drink her coffee quickly and a day of travel is not conducive to starting new habits. Her party spirit animal, though also droopy, was slightly perkier than her daughter’s.

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww, Elizabeth!” she exclaimed, poking curiously around the kitchen. “Did ya make something for us to eat? Why is the couch on the other side of the living room? Where does Mom keep the glue and the tape? Is that a new plate?”

Some things never change. Some people are never too pooped to get the scoop.

In a few moments, the hardships of her life came tumbling out. That’s because, for a girl who loves a party, she’s had a pretty balloon-popping few months.

              

"Lizette, I have such a disappointing life,” she says, half moaning and half smiling. I tell her that anyone who packs up her entire home in the span of three weeks has a right to disappointment.  It's practically an inalienable right. I tell her words like terrible, horrible, mystifying, earth-shattering, and inspiring. She begins to see the light.

             

Even though these conversations are uplifting, they’re only occasional. 

Sarah still wakes up to a full plate. Instead of finding a sampling platter of red velvet and vanilla cakes, which she would have adored, she discovers she's been served an upside down cake. What's worse, the icing is flavored with change.  Absolutely not. No thank you. She’s highly allergic to change. Still, she doesn’t get to wake up to a full plate with a little sign beside it that says: the contents of this plate were prepared in a facility with CHANGE and may contain traces of it.

              

A big move to the South. A new zip code, New landlords. Meghan Markle. It’s a lot for one lady with small shoes and a big heart to handle.

              

There are those trying times when her white shirt has a stain on it or her leggings look too much like something Michael Phelps would wear. She’ll blow air dramatically through her lips and chock it up to her “disappointing life.”
Other than that, she doesn't complain about her topsy-turvy life. If I didn’t know she’s in the process of transitioning from one world to another, I’d have no idea. In fact, I needed to remind myself of this as I played Catchphrase with her, wore matching Christmas jammies, and painted her nails the color of a watermelon rind.

                           

At first, as I watched Sarah brush Annabelle’s curls after sudsy baths and listened to her sing bathtime anthems, I theorized that her refusal to complain must be quite deliberate. Now, I’ve decided it’s not in her to do it. Complaining would rain on her own parade. She loves a parade. For the love of all the is sparkly, she will not rain on it. 

If complaining is not in Sarah’s blood, gift giving is part of her DNA.When she arrived a few days before Christmas, she brought bins of presents, each one exceptionally packaged and thoughtfully chosen. One frigid day, we went to Old Navy and she bought me a cute little tank top just because I said I liked it. When it was time to pay, she said, “Squidzen, you can just…go and look anywhere you want in the store. You can look anywhere. The whole store is full of things to look at.” She didn’t want me to see her pay for a shirt that says “loved” in pointy, cursive letters.

She asked me to run to the store and pick out a tiny tree so that Joana could have the first Christmas tree of her life. 

During the Great Snow Bomb of 2017, she brought Dad some soup from Panera so that he could have something warm to eat.

Nearly singlehandedly, she filled the Christmas stockings for each member of the family and excitedly instructed everyone not to forget them where they hang on the stairway. (My stocking got mixed up with my Twin brother’s stocking, which means he now wears a pair of socks with a pastel deer print on them. Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell him about the mix-up, but that’s okay. If deer print socks are the worst thing he’s up to, it’s a pretty good deal. As I tell Sarah, it’s best to be mildly wild. That way, you’re less likely to be really wild when you want to be.)

Editorial comment- I lose all control and sense of decorum when I'm with my siblings. Never in my wife/homemaker life would I launch myself and slide over the counter like a penguin BUT THERE I GO. Look at my offspring. She can't believe what's happening.

I’ve been away from Massachusetts for some time. Whenever I come to visit, I look to see if Sarah has been here. If I see something nice—a teapot card, a heating pad, or a soft fleece blanket—I don’t even have to ask who it’s from. I know the kind of trail Sarah leaves behind.

Sarah gives and gives. She reminds me of a little rhyme I read somewhere and haven’t been able to find again. It goes, “This is the song by which we live. It is so sweet to give and give.”  Like road trips, the journey to becoming a kinder and happier person sometimes takes longer than expected. But Sarah always arrives just on time, holding presents and climbing over the kitchen counter, and leaving sparkles behind her.

She might not ever know where she’ll go next. But one thing is for sure: we always know where she’s been.