"Life is so full of unpredictable beauty and strange surprises. Sometimes that beauty is too much for me to handle. Do you know that feeling? When something is just too beautiful? When someone says something or writes something or plays something that moves you to the point of tears, maybe even changes you." — Mark Oliver Everett (Things The Grandchildren Should Know)

I just returned from San Diego after a four-day re-bonding trip with my old friend John McCarthy who hired Rose years ago at NCAR. Before going to bed, as I always do, I logged on to Rose’s memorial site to say good night. I was stunned to see that beautiful photo of Miss Ellie holding her grandmother’s photo that Jens and Lesley had posted. Tears came spontaneously, not from sadness, but because it was so incredibly precious and captured in one image exactly what I wanted to write about but couldn’t because I couldn’t quite get my words organized to convey how Rose felt about her grandchild. 

Rose worshiped her; there was not a day that went by that she did not turn on her phone and play the latest video that Lesley had sent. She would play it over and over and I would hear a belly laugh now and then. It was a joy to listen to her do this because I knew her stress level was at its lowest point. Now and then I would look into the bedroom where she read, worked on her crossword puzzles and viewed videos on her phone and just smile at her; she would have that big, almost bursting, grin on her face that said “I love this child, and she makes me so happy.”

There’s another side to this story. Miss Ellie was Rose’s first grandchild but she dreamed of the ones to follow. At least once a week she would say, “I can’t wait until Lisa and Neema have their first baby. Can you imagine how beautiful he or she will be, beautiful dark skin with blue eyes? If it is a girl she will be a striking, beautiful, exotic girl and if it is a boy he will be the most handsomest man. I can’t wait!” Her anticipation would always make me smile.

Now and then she would suddenly get serious and sad after thinking these thoughts. I would ask her why such thoughts made her feel depressed and she would say, “I was just thinking for a minute about who Sammy would have married and what my grandchildren would have looked like." This always broke my heart. I would usually not say anything but hold her tightly for a few minutes. She would recover quickly though as her thoughts went back to Miss Ellie and the grandkids she so anticipated and say, “I’ll give them double love, from me… and from Sam.”

"If I’d known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren, I’d have had them first." — Henny Youngman

"Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world kep turning our way
And our way
Is on the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again." -- Willie Nelson, On the Road Again

Driving 1000 miles from Rosie’s Place in Fayetteville, TX to Tucson, AZ a few days ago was bitter sweet. It was the first trip in our motorhome since my sweet Rose passed away. It was good to be back on the road again -- we always played the song by Willie Nelson of the same name as we pulled out -- but incredibly sad to look over at the empty co-pilot seat and not see her smiling face. As I listened to Willie wail, tears came fast, and I tried to overcome the grief I felt by focusing on the good times we had as we had pulled out onto the highway on the many trips we had taken. That’s what she admonished me to do, but it was not easy.

I was so grateful to have our trusty pooch, Miss Maizy, along. Just as was done on the battlefield, when a leader fell another was promoted into their position and the unit marched on, I promoted Miss Maizy to official Co-Pilot of our rig. She couldn’t just sit in the seat, which she was never allowed to do before; she had to be on guard now, with a laser focus on the highway and roadsides looking for that idiot deer just about to jump in front of us and take us out in a suicide run. She seemed to relish this new assignment and quickly looked at me each time I turned the key on to warm the diesel engine before starting, asking with her big brown eyes if it was really OK to jump into the seat. “OK, let’s go”, I would say and she would immediately leap into position, looking keenly ahead as if she knew something was going to be an issue any minute. She made me smile.

Rose and that dog were bonded like nothing I have ever seen. Rose claimed that somehow she and Maizy were intertwined spiritually. I doubted this at first but as the months went by I saw signs that caused me to think that she might be right. When I would see Rose coming home and before Maizy had spotted her, I would say “Where’s Rose” and she would immediately begin a series of body movements -- tail wagging, smiling face, a loping up and down combined with her entire body moving sideways in an undulating fashion like a slippery seal -- that could only be interpreted as “Oh boy, oh boy, my Mom and best friend and pack mate are back.” She would jump up to the window of the car, Rose would roll the window down and there would be at least a minute’s worth of kisses exchanged. Those two loved each other.

I guess it is that bond and seeing Maizy sitting in the co-pilot seat that allowed me to finally adjust to the trip and use it more for a good time to think about a lot of things. Miss Maizy is my co-pilot now but Rose is clearly with both of us in spirit as we make our way down the road to our next destination. They both make me smile.

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." -- Will Rogers

“I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand

Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand

Life is good today, life is good today.”

-- Zak Brown Band (Toes)

Rose’s tag line on her email was “Dreaming of Palm Trees”; she loved palm trees. To her they not only represented warm, beautiful beaches but also some exotic, far away, place she dreamed of visiting. We had Palm tree decals on the motorhome mirrors, on our tow vehicle mirrors, and on her shirts.  A few years ago I bought her a beautiful beautiful rose gold palm tree pendant with a diamonds along the fronds. She loved it and wore it continuously. She had it on the morning she died. If you wanted to get a big smile, big hug and big thank you from Rose you just had to tell her that you booked a flight to a place with palm trees. It is one of the prime reasons she fell in love with our property on the Gulf that we called Sam’s Place.

Palm trees also were memories that we shared of places we had visited. One of our favorite places and our favorite hotel was Las Brisas in Ixtapa, Mexico. The photograph above was taken there and was a place where we read many a novel to each other under those palapas as we listened to the large waves breaking on the beach as they rolled in from across the Pacific. This was a blissful place for Rose. Her stress, which was always with her, subsided to minimum levels and you could visibly see the tension drain away from her. Visits there were usually a week to 10 days but they were never long enough. She never wanted to get back on the plane for the return flight. As she packed her bag for the return trip she would always pout like a little kid and say, “I don’t want to go back home.”

There was a darker, more worrisome side to her thoughts about palm trees. Her dad had served his time as a radioman in the Philippines and surrounding tropical islands. He rarely talked about it but she learned enough to know that it was a very difficult time. “My dad said he lived off of coconuts for awhile during the war because they didn’t have enough to eat”, she would say, out of the blue. Obviously the trees that she loved so much also usually reminded her of her dad’s ordeal and you could tell that it had an emotional effect on her. She would ponder this for an hour or so during our trips but then go back to her blissful enjoyment of the place.

When I see a palm tree now I always think of my Rose. I planted one for her near her granite memorial marker in her rose garden in Fayetteville. I now wear her necklace and palm tree pendant. It is always with me and gives me comfort when I think about her and feel sad.

“I thought of you and how you love this beauty,

And walking up the long beach all alone

I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder

As you and I once heard their monotone.

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me

The cold and sparkling silver of the sea --

We two will pass through death and ages lengthen

Before you hear that sound again with me.”

― Sara Teasdale