 |
| Romay grew a mustache one Halloween. |
“Dad,” Romay used the voice she always employed when she wanted something. It was almost sweet enough to give cavities. “Can I drive the truck to go trick or treating with my friends?”
It was the voice that almost always worked, but I had pictures of a sixteen-year-old girl hopped up on candy driving a full-sized pickup while other kids ran around the roads hopped up on candy.
“I’m happy to drive you,” I answered.
She smiled, grabbed my arm, and began pulling me toward the door, “Okay, Dad, let’s go.”
I spent the rest of the night driving three teen girls from house to house as they ran an assault on the village of Galena. By the time they were around 16, Romay and her friends had Halloween down to a science. They knew which houses gave out full candy bars, popcorn balls (still the coveted item in Alaskan villages), cans of pop, etc. and would map out in advance and give me my driving orders as we went.
To be honest, I knew which houses I wanted to stop by as well as the dads would send out treats for me who they knew was sitting in the truck while the kids stood at their doors.
The action was fast and furious.
“Go, go, go,” the girls would start yelling before the truck had even fully stopped while the girl sitting close to the door struggled with the mechanism.
The goal was to get as much candy and goodies as possible before the houses ran out. After finishing up, we would return to our house where the girls would spread their take on the kitchen table and divide up their plunder. I felt like I was watching buccaneers in a pirate cave. Kemper, our yellow lab, looked on with great interest as the girls opened their popcorn balls to enjoy first.
“Shanda makes the best popcorn balls,” Romay said as she unwrapped hers. The absolute joy on her face changed to sheer terror as she lost grip on it and it began falling to the floor.
The ball never hit the ground. Kemper had seen his opportunity as though it was the moment he had been training for, snatched it from the air, crunched twice and swallowed. He looked pretty proud of himself as Romay sank to her chair groaning.
Romay and her friends trick-or-treated all the way up through their senior years. It was something that I secretly looked forward to at least as much as they did. Senior year Halloween came, and I knew Romay would be heading off to college the next fall. I wanted that Halloween to last and tried my best to hold on to that evening for as long as I could. I was not ready for trick-or-treat retirement as I felt I was still in my prime, but all good things come to an end at some point.
We moved on from Halloween to the rest of the roller coaster that is a kid’s senior year. As parents, Myra and I did our best to hold on for the ride. Romay’s basketball season started and we moved on to going from game to game and cheering her on. Just as the season started, Myra came down with a flu that seemed to drag on forever. She couldn’t shake it.
A couple of weeks of the flu, and we got smart to what was really going on.
“What are you guys planning on doing with your empty nest,” Andy asked as I sat down next to him at the Grace Christian School basketball tournament.
“Well,” I smiled, “we won’t have an empty nest. We’re backfilling.”
We had only just started telling family that Myra was pregnant, Andy is my cousin, and so fit that circle.
“Oh, well,” Andy smiled back, “congratulations.”
He found out only fifteen minutes before our older daughter who laughed and cried and excitedly looked forward to being an older sister, even if there was to be eighteen years between them.
Our backfill baby was born that July and entered the world in much the same way that her older sister exited the truck while trick-or-treating. But, when Halloween came that year, Ellen didn’t even dress up. The next Halloween came, and though she dressed up like a dog, she didn’t pull me toward the door to go raid our neighbors for candy. She fell asleep before our candy bowl at home was even empty.
Halloween number three and four came, and she finally started getting the idea. It helped that she could walk, and she found it novel that the three houses we went to gave her candy just for knocking on their doors.
Halloween number five, and her mom asked, “Do you want me to take you trick or treating, or Dad.”
“Dad,” she said as she grabbed my arm and started dragging me to the door.
My heart beat a little faster.
She looked at me in the car and started talking strategy, “I want to go to Harper’s, Miss Vicky’s, Ms. Martins, Cassidy’s…”
I have called my older daughter on occasion and apologized for her role as my experiment child I had learned with now that her younger sister is the one benefiting. She always says something to put my mind at ease, but with this child, this time around, I don’t take anything for granted.
Ellen opened the car door and ran for the next porch and for a brief moment, I saw her older sister doing the same thing.
In the car by myself, I whispered a short, quiet prayer, “thank you, Father,” and watched as Ellen scampered back down the steps, to the car, and climbed inside.
“Let’s go to Papa Jeff’s now,” she requested and we drove off for our next stop, her smile matching mine.
I wasn’t ready to be done with Halloween.
Two good dogs (Halloween 2017)
No comments:
Post a Comment