Tonight is a new beginning- I realized with certainty that I am going to grow old. Along this journey I have not been convinced that Caleb and I would make it. I was driven by fear. ...this is the nature of this game.......but tonight I have clarity of life. I am now looking forward to the day in the kitchen when Max comes around and I leak with laughter over somethng he has said..or I cry with the tender understanding of a simple sentence that is uttered out of a shared thought that Kai and I pass between us ......and I would never miss the new beginning of Caleb - whatever it might be. Life in it's tragedies and it's triumps is still to me so rich and vibrant...I cannot miss it.

This journey of ours is not like any other. I sit before you naked and scared and alive and breathing and not sure of anything I knew before. We are jumping in - feet first, heart closely behind, with the hopes and fears that all of us share along this path -

and with the dream of something better!

A New Year

We made it through Christmas...no actually we thrived, not just made it. I went out to the "girls" party..a tradition with my friends for 26 years now (we think) The boys and I and Timmy walked down to visit Jan on the beach after a morning of opening presents and downing homemade sticky cinnamon buns. Aunt Carol's peaceful and beautiful home is where we landed in the evening for a delightful dinner and laughs.

We are Rehabilitating each in our own way. This is what it feels like to be in this situation..we are on this little tenuous raft and we are trying to go with the flow of that which is current. ...which is easy if you just let go and ride it out.......the current will take you. We get into trouble when we change course or think we know a better way..or worse..we try to go back........we paddle against the current and we paddle with no gain.
I recently burned myself on the stove and as the scar heals, I watch as each of us heals...Kai is packing for Bali ..Max is packing for his move to Jan's apartment, I am packing up my thoughts of how I thought we would be.

We look toward a New Year with healthy anticipation.

Happy Holidays to all

We are nearing Christmas and at the Potter household our very favorite thing to do is decorate cut out cookies. It has always amazed me that even as the boys became young adults, they still always took the time to sit at the kitchen table, frosting in hand, and they would create the most lovely, artistic cookies known to man. Last night Amy St John and Timmy joined us. Timmy ate every cookie he decorated save 3, so we were expecting a full blown stomach ache. Amy packed hers up for gifts and my boys batches are stored for further stomach aches. We are in good shape..tackling this Holiday with vim and vigor.
I personally love Christmas...and I am looking forward to this day to celebrate, along with the remaining days till we pass into a New Year, the gifts we have been given this year. Not the kinds that are boxed up and wrapped, but the kinds that are tucked into the corners of a smile or a kind word. The veil of love and comfort that has draped over us this past year has caused me pause and I bless everyone who has been along on this journey with us...the two little sister's who wrote Caleb, all of Caleb's caregiver's along the way, Sabra and her love for her sister, a hand held longer as I walk away, and eyes that well up as they wish me a Merry Christmas. The thoughts and prayers, the writing's on the blog....and the fact that Caleb is still with us on our collective journey through this life. The young man who never seems to grow tired of giving in the true sense of giving. He extends his heart to all he sees and he gives of his love completely. We are blesed.

Happy Holidays to all of you and to all a good night.

Lump in my throat

I never knew at all my Grandmother...mother's mother. But what I do know is that my mother sat by her at Christmas time, holding her while she was dying and she sang a hushed and impassioned song to her as she slipped away. Silent night.
So isn't it funny that I cannot get through a single verse of that song without a lump in my throat and without welling up in spite of the fact that I never laid eyes on Grandma. That feeling alone speaks to me of the ties that family brings to the table. It is an emotional gene pool that extends beyond our skin to those who join us in our walk on this Earth. I can still feel my mother's pain when I attempt to get through that song and I know that on some level, my boys have inherited that emotion surrounding Christmas. That is what families do - they share their victories and they share their pain.

We are busy decorating the house, collecting pine boughs for the urns, picking out our favorite wrapping paper and are desperately trying on a different Christmas this year. Jan always was with the boys on Christmas eve when they were little. Being of German blood lines - this was when his family celebrated and I got to tuck them snuggly into their cinnamon sprinkled sheets that night with great anticipation for the following day.
So this year Christmas eve will be "Silent night , Holy night."
and Christmas day will be " all is calm, all is bright" as we who still remain in this family realize that we are together and all is well.
" Round yon virgin ( well that has to be me) mother and child. Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace."

The last part is where we wish all of you tender sleep with dreams of another day where you are together and perfect as you are and complete .
So with a lump in my throat and tender swelling eyes, I forge forward into an uncharted season of love and giving and I thank my lucky stars that we have people like you out there who cry at commercials, who fret about their children, who look to the future with impassioned hopes and dreams...and we wish you silent nights, holy nights. And we hope that you too sleep with heavenly peace.
Happy Holidays from the Lindsay/ Potter household.

Happy Birthday Kai

It was a very special day for me 24 years ago when Kai Potter came into my life on December 9th . He had jet black hair that would quickly shed to blonde, and an adorable smile which would introduce us to his kind nature to come. He has been as an adult my right hand man in my business and he would become my hand holding partner when the shit hit the fan with Caleb. His dedication to his brother goes beyond measure and his love for Caleb is palpable. I just recently learned that as a little boy he complained of headaches to Caleb and Caleb told him that pouring gas into a rag and huffing it would cure it ( Caleb always had a little bit of the devil in him.) Of course, being the adoring younger brother, Kai indeed found some gas from the mower..poured it into the rag and sniffed at it till (of course) his headache went away....and from that day forward that is what their relationship would be like. Kai always believing Caleb and Caleb always causing trouble.
Kai is thoughtful, serene, zen in all ways, beautiful to look at, smarter than the average genius , a slow motion study in beauty as he whips across the waves and just the kind of person everyone deserves have in their lives....but we got lucky! I love him to pieces! Happy Birthday Kai.

I had a delightful phone conversation yesterday that has me flying. I spoke to a yound woman who had an accident years ago on her bicycle, suffered a brain injury which almost killed her, who now sounds like a very giving, thoughtful young lady with an adoring husband and small children who kept yelping the entire time we spoke...and she is happy and complete, and loving life. She will never know what a gift it was to speak to her and how much it helped to know that there is a real live person out there who has gone through this and feels she is better for it. Thank you.

A few more thanks that are in order ...so many gifts and cards are pouring in - but a few without return addresses. Caleb and I try our level best to keep up so if we have skipped over you - please forgive us. These are some we know we missed as no return address was sent.
A beautiful prayer shawl form Lisa which warms my heart, chocolates from Gracie, fun stuff from Mia in Boston, and a book from Sam, Will and Johnny. We try to not single out anyone as we appreciate all of you..but this had to be said or I would not be able to sleep.

A beautiful picture of Caleb arrived taken by my friend Judy who happened to be at a party where Caleb opened oyster for his raw bar end of business, and the first response was to hold back tears and silently watch him watch himself and see his eyes as they register the changes in himself....but I am trying to shake myself into the reality of where we are instead of where we were...and I smile down at the picture and then up into the new face and I realize he is just as perfect as before.
He looks back at me and says " I like this picture" and we both slide it back into the envelope for safe keeping and continue with our day as if nothing is out of order...and in truth ..it isn't.

When life sends you easy breezes and laughter - take it and cherish it. I do think we need to have these times as a rest and a reprieve for the times when life sends us it's twists and turns. And life does do this. But I am beginning to think that we have it backwards.. we cherish the happy times and recoil in horror at the dark and uncertain hours.... I now understand that we need to look at this differently. It is in the hard times that life beckons for us to become who it is that life has called for us to be. With Caleb's accident all sorts of rockets of desire have been sent forth...good health..a bigger me - a bigger him...a more centered Max and a more complete Kai. We are all finding our way. It is a strange dichotomy. I want my old life back, realize I cannot, under any circumstances have it, and move forward with a semi guilty, positive outlook. Guilty because I feel I am leaving Caleb behind, positive because I am finding almost a new, renewed and better me in all of this. Could it be that on another level Caleb and I agreed to a pact of sorts where he said..... I will come to you and be your child and I will live with deliberatenous and generosity and I will fill everyone I meet with laughter and love in my short 25 years? My life will be more of a life than most people will experience in over a span of 75 years and you will love me more than you could ever know ......and then you will lose what you knew of me.... and in doing so I will give you the gift of finding yourself. It is the only thought that keeps me sane. I rest tonight with this thought in my loneliness and I feel better knowing that Caleb continues to gift us with his effervesence and his widows peak and his contagious smile........ and his proclivity for life.