Strolling Down Memory Lane

When I hear that term I think of tree lined foot paths that lead to clusters of flower beds riot with color, then onto open grassy areas rimmed with low bushy flowers lined like sentinels directing the way. Cool gentle breezes adrift with floral scents to entice one further along the path.

Since Saturday I have been on a time machine operated by a computer. The random generated algorithms encoded in this time machine had no rhyme or reason. Still doesn't. They clicked and whirred at a dizzying rate from one time period to the next. Not in any kind of order.

Memories came from every year in our kids lives. From their teens, then flickering to toddler, whirling into adolescence, sputtering back to the teen years, a click and hop to more recent times within the past two years, then plummeting back to youth.

The girls, together for the first time since 1992, made me giddy. They giggled. They ripped out the belly laughs, they teased each other, they told stories on one another. The "Wait, wait. I have a better one" went on for a while.

These memories didn't end when the "Reunion" ended. They came by text messages on the way home, followed by more text messages today. I have alternated from laughing my fool head off to crying from the heartwarming remembrances.

Being a step parent is so hard. The task of being a parent of any kind, a good parent, is one fraught with raised voices, edicts of "I hate you", the one word I heard more than any other was "Mom or Leslie" the one I grew to really hate was "Why". Why do I have to do this? Why can't I do that? Why don't you trust me? Why should I do that?

The first few years of my marriage to the kids Dad I thought would be the last. Man was that a hard time. Over the years I was positive I had made such a mess of things that the kids only talked to me because I am still married to their Dad.

This weekend was such a welcome time in my life. Then hearing from one of the kids that they had favorite memories of when they were young, then proceeding to tell them to me made me cry some more.

Would I take a walk down this path made by several drunks? You bet I would. Next year I'll do it all over again if I can.

So, the theft of personal items took a back seat to the events and people that I spent my time with. The jerks who broke into our vehicle and stole things from us, they didn't steal what is worth all the money in this universe. My kids and our memories.