Vacation

I shouldn't be surprised that my emotions are so raw today.  Sandwiched between Max's birthday and our family's favorite holiday - July 4, it seems like I am in a very low valley.  Tears are usually a 'relief valve' for my tension, but not even the hot tears running down my face seem to provide any relief.  I just feel so hopeless, like I have something worse than a 'death sentence' for the rest of my life ... the 'death of my son' sentence!!  Much worse than dying myself.

I have many fond memories of vacations with my boys.  As he grew older, Max hated vacation.  He thought it was a waste of time.  He wanted to be home with his friends, or working and earning money!  I told him he had his whole life to be a grown up and work and earn money ... guess I lied to him!!  The last vacation we took as a family, Max made it miserable for all of us, he was so unhappy that we drug him along!  The high point of that vacation is when we allowed him to invite Trinity down and she came down to stay for a couple of nights.  He perked right up when she was there!  She always made him very happy.

We took a cruise one year, and Max's goal was to eat 100 pieces of pizza BETWEEN meals, because the pizza & ice cream were available 24 hours a day.  I think he well exceeded that goal.  He scared the wits out of me one night on that same cruise, he missed curfew and we had the whole crew of the ship looking for him!!  He was lying on the floor of the library playing a board game with a girl he had met ... they had just simply lost track of time ... I think I gained some gray hair out of that experience!

We spent many summers at Grand Lake in Oklahoma.  We always played games at night, and for our family, that meant Civilization.  We could set up the game and play all week long.  Max would always win.  He was a genius at strategy.  He was always 15 steps ahead of the rest of us.  We like to joke now that we finally have a chance of winning now that he isn't around to play any more.