Carpe Diem (15 page)

When class is finished and all the food was packaged up for us to take home, we pose for a quick picture with Chef. He gives us each a hug and tells us that he wants to see us back sometime. He offered to create a whole new Spam menu for us.

After putting our food in the car, I invite Bryna to help me find the perfect spot for the piece of Dad’s mug. She smiled and started looking around. Flynn disappeared for a moment and returned with a garden spade.

“Thought you might need this, the ground is pretty solid.”

“Thank you, I didn’t even think about that.”

“I found a spot,” Bryna yells.

I turn to see her standing near a small tree. It looks so sad with all its leaves gone. Flynn and I walk over and Bryna and I do our best to dig a small hole.

It took some muscle, but we were able to get a hole big enough for the small piece.

“Good idea with the garden spade,” I say as I hand the spade back to Flynn.

He gives me a smile and steps back. He starts to walk back to the car to give us privacy, I assume.

“Where are you going?” Bryna asks.

“I thought I would let you and your mom have a few minutes alone.

“No, stay… you are part of this,” she tells him.

Flynn looks to me for approval. I give him a nod and a smile, letting him know I wanted him to stay.

Bryna says a few words and places the glass in the hole and covers it. As she stands, she wipes away the few tears that have escaped. When we get home, I follow my new routine and pull the list out and let her cross the item off the list.

Take a cooking class

T
he next morning,
Bryna and I are up early prepping for our big Thanksgiving feast. I may have gone a little overboard on the invites. Let’s see—my mom, dad, Abby, Dave, Casey, Chuck, Leo, Flynn, Bryna, me, and Jack’s parents said they
might
stop by. Yikes, twelve people. I sure hope this damn turkey is big enough.

“Bryna, I need you to bring all the chairs from the dining room into the living room,” I yell.

“Yes, Mom, I know. You already told me three times.”

“Okay, okay. I just want everything set up before we go.”

“Mom, it will be fine,” Bryna assures me.

An hour later, we have everything set. The turkey is cooking away in the oven, and the table is set up for the buffet style dinner I am doing since space is limited.

“Mom, are you sure you want to go today? We can go later or tomorrow if you want,” Bryna asks.

“No, I want to go before dinner. I know that I will be exhausted and then I will feel guilty for not going sooner.”

“I think Dad would understand.”

“I know, and he is probably up there laughing at my neurotic behavior, and I don’t care.”

After finishing a few final touches and packing my small bag for our visit, Bryna and I jump in the car and head toward the cemetery. Along the way, Bryna and I make a pit stop at the neighborhood florist, who lucky for us is open until noon today. With all my prep work for today, I completely forget to pick up flowers for Jack. Not that he would actually care, he was never a flower type of guy. Yes, he brought home a bouquet from time to time, but only because he knew I loved getting them.

The cemetery is busier than it usually is when I come to visit. I suppose it is the holidays that bring people out. Everyone misses their loved ones a little more when the calendar makes you take a break from the normal day to day routines and reminds us the loved ones we once shared these days with are no longer with us.

I park the car down the hill from where Jack lay. Bryna grabs my hand and squeezes, letting me know she is here.

“You ready?” I ask.

“Ready when you are.” She smiles.

I take a deep breath and open my car door. I grab the flowers from the backseat and we walk up the small hill.

As we approach his headstone, I watch Bryna wipe away a few tears. This is about the time I would normally start crying, but I think I have become so used to this walk that my tears are easier to hold back.

I’m a little curious when I see a card next to his headstone. I look to Bryna to see if she was the one who left the card. She shakes her head no. When we approach the headstone, I once again read the words I chose to sit alongside his name and dates.

Here lies a grateful son, loving husband,

proud father, and caring friend…

The past is history. The future is a mystery.
We will hold dear our memories of him,
his smile, and the sound of his laughter… forever.

And forever he will be missed.

I kneel down and place the flowers in front of the marble stone and pick up the envelope. Simple block handwriting spells “Mrs. Jack Reynolds.” I look around to see if anyone is watching from afar, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. No one is lurking behind a tree or waiting in a car to see my reaction.

“Who do you think it is from?” Bryna asks.

“I have no idea?” I respond as I rip open the envelope.

It is a sympathy card. The front is a basic fall pattern with gold and yellow leaves. The words
“
Our thoughts and prayers are with you today
”
are arranged in large script font. When I open the card more gold leaf designs and the words “Those whom we have loved ever so deeply never really leave us. They live on in our hearts forever.” I also see that it is unsigned. Someone left an unsigned sympathy card. Who the hell would do something like that?

As if today was not hard enough, some jackass had to add a mystery to my day. I should be thankful that someone was thoughtful enough to want to leave me a card, but then why not sign it? Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Okay, I think rather than losing my shit over a card, I am going to assume that the person that left it forgot to sign it. I’m sure we have all done that before. This could not have been intentional, it had to have been an accident.

After shaking off the weirdness of the unsigned card, Bryna and I spend a little time cleaning up the leaves and old flowers before spreading out a blanket and pulling the Tupperware along with two forks from my bag.

Bryna and I take a seat and prepare to devourer two large pieces of cherry cheesecake. Jack’s favorite pie for Thanksgiving was not a traditional pumpkin or apple, or even one of the French silk pie everyone craves. Nope, it was plain old cherry cheesecake, and he didn’t like to share. I would make a cherry cheesecake just for him for Thanksgiving while Bryna and I got to fight over the pumpkin. He would sit at the table with the whole tin and slowly eat bite after bite until it was gone in one sitting. He didn’t want to take the chance that one of us would sneak a few bites when he wasn’t looking.

“Oh, good idea, Mom!” Bryna shouts when she sees what I have.

“I thought your dad would get a kick out of it.” I laugh.

We slowly take bite after bite, enjoying each and every one of them as he would have. Bryna jokingly starts to make the little moaning sounds, but almost loses a cherry when she starts laughing at the memories.

“Mom, when are you going to start dating?”

I nearly choke when the words come flying out of nowhere. My gut reaction is to laugh at her question until I see she is perfectly serious.

“Oh, um. I, ah, hmm, well maybe one day when there are flying cars and a colony on the moon,” I joke.

Bryna lets out a small laugh at my attempt at humor.

“No, Mom, seriously. I don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life.”

She looks at me with such sorrow it breaks my heart.

“Oh, sweetie. I’m not alone. I have your Aunt Casey, Abby, and Flynn and most importantly, I have you.”

“Yeah, but they are all busy with their lives and with me off at school you don’t have anyone to come home to.”

“Well, honey, even if I were to start dating someone it’s not like I would start living with them right away,” I point out .

“No, I know, but you know what I mean.”

“Yes, sweetie, I do. However, these things take time. I have never considered or thought about being with anyone other than your father. Oh wait, I did daydream about Channing Tatum once. How about Channing Tatum… Can I date him?”

Bryna let out a small laugh, trying to hide her smile peeking out from behind her sad eyes.

“No, you can’t. He is already married.”

“Damn, then I should just join a convent because he would have been my one and only hope for future happiness.” I laugh.

Bryna is not able to hide her smile any longer. I love to see her smile. She has had to deal with so much over the last year and a half. I wish I could take all that pain and worry away and just let her worry about being a young adult and not me.

“Come on, let’s get going. People will start arriving soon.”

“Okay, but promise me, here in front of Dad that you will not wait forever. It’s not like you are super young or anything… if you wait too long, you may only be able to choose from the guys Viagra can’t even help.”

“Bryna!” I shout, laughing.

“What, it’s true… you’re approaching that hill everyone talks about, and it’s all downhill after that.” She laughs loudly.

“My God, you are truly your father’s daughter,” I tell her.

After folding the blanket and repacking my bag, I kneel down one more time and lay my hand on the cold marble.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think you had put her up to that.” I pause and look back at Bryna, who smiles back at me as I continue. “Although, I will make you both this promise. I will always keep you in my heart, and
if
I should find someone worthy of sharing my heart with, I promise I will not turn my back on the possibility of where that could lead.”

“Thank you, again for coming,” I say as I wave to everyone from the door.

It’s about time everyone was on their way. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having everyone here, but now I am ready to sit back and relax in my comfortable clothes. Maybe even curl up with a glass of wine and watch a movie.

Bryna left an hour ago to go hang out with some friends before she has to leave again. Ah, the sweet sound of the quiet. You never truly appreciate the quiet until you have had a houseful of people wanting to talk your ear off or offer to help a billion times when you have told them repeatedly that you have everything under control.

I love them all for being here for Bryna and me today and appreciate everything they have done for us since Jack passed. He would be happy to know that we are being well taken care of. My mind is wandering when I hear
CLINK, CLINK
coming from the kitchen.

“Hello?” I call out.

“Yes,” a voice calls back.

“Flynn, I thought you left with the rest. You nearly scared me half to death,” I say, walking into the kitchen.

“Sorry, I wanted to get some of these dishes done for you.”

“You
really
didn’t have to do that.” I smile as I lean against the doorway.

“I
really
do. In my family, the cook of the Thanksgiving feast does
not
do the dishes.”