Has it really been seven weeks since I last posted here? A lot has happened over the past weeks, many of which I have posted pictures. Taste of Charlotte was a great success, thank you to everyone who helped support the event. Mom and Dad had an extended stay in Charlotte from which I think they needed a month after to recuperate. Lori's Mom also came into town to help out during the Taste. Thank you everyone!
Lilly has successfully passed kindergarten and is now preparing for the first grade. She wore the fanciest dress she could find to celebrate. You can see a picture of "graduation" here.
I was downloading pictures from my camera and from my phone and realized that I had a lot of wonderful pictures that I hadn't shared yet. I will include a link at the end of this entry for a gallery with all of the random pictures. But I wanted to share a couple of the stories of them with you. Ah yes, some of you are probably wondering about the on going story of the flowers at the cemetery. This time, there will not be a picture. Unfortunately, I think the project is over for this year. The high heat and lack of rain has finally ended most of my hope. I'll try again next spring. Aside from the flowers, I have intentionally not included pictures from the cemetery. It is a personal place for me and in some aspects feels a little odd that I even have pictures from there....
But I do. And I wanted to share a couple of them with you. The first picture is from March. Amy coordinated a balloon launch for Lori on her anniversary. You can see the picture here. The next picture is a beautiful shot of the balloons drifting into the sky, on their way to Lori. Click here to see it. And this third picture is priceless. Lilly is yelling to Lori. Her exact words, "Catch it Mommy! Catch it!" You can see the picture here.
Not that long after, Vince, Shannon and Family came to Charlotte. While here, we took time to visit with Lori. It was very touching to see Lilly leading the way with Julianna and Gabby following closely behind. Lilly showed them where she talks to Mommy, showed them her name on the stone, the flowers in the vase and the place behind her stone where we planted the flowers. And then the girls drifted off a little to explore the area. As I stood there closest to Lori, I caught a glimpse of the girls off in the distance and I couldn't resist taking this picture. Lilly and Julianna sitting on a distant bench. Lilly wearing a dress with a sweater and a hat. Their backs to me. Maybe they are talking to each other, maybe they are sitting in silence. All I know is that when I look at this picture, I could hear Lori telling me that this is a picture that she would want to paint in water colors. You can see the picture here.
Speaking of the Chicerelli's, Lilly and I were blessed with the opportunity to go to Shannon's brothers wedding in Orlando. It was a beautiful ceremony along with a wonderful reception after. Lilly danced the night away and Daddy needed a couple of days to recuperate also. Following the wedding, we were able to hang out at a great resort in a nice suite. During the afternoon, the adults were in the living area dozing off in front of the tv while Lilly and Gabby went off to play in the bedroom / bathroom. Who knows how long they played or what they were doing in there, but they seemed content and we were not about to disrupt that.
A few days later, I received an email from Shannon. It said something to the effect of "in case you wanted to know what the girls were doing in the bathroom". And a series of pictures were attached. Scroll through the pictures and when you get to the last one, I have included a link to return to this story. You can what the girls were up to here.
A couple of weekends ago I was cleaning up in the garage and had gathered some random crafty type things that had been laying around for awhile. I decided that they should go into the cabinet in the garage. The one with the sticky note that says "Mommy's Craft Factory". Opening the cabinet, I scanned the shelves looking for space. There was very little as Lori has the factory stocked full of inventory. Bins of paints, fabric, ribbon, sketch pads, trinkets, glue guns, tool boxes and a variety of other supplies over-flowed the shelves. To make room for the few items I had collected, I tried to condense a few of the bins.
Just as before with the sketches of my flower beds and of my kitchen, I sensed that there was something special waiting for me. I decided to open just one. Win or lose, I wouldn't look through the rest of the bins. It was a pink plastic container. A unique bin with latches to open it on both the top and the bottom. It was a translucent color, so I could see through the bottom to an image of a photograph. I started on the bottom. To my surprise, the bottom opened to reveal only a very shallow compartment. Less than an inch deep and solid. It was like a secret compartment on the bottom of a bin designed to hide papers or documents or in this case, pictures.
Printed on full sheets of 8.5 by 11 inch photo paper, I was looking at a special stash of photo's that Lori had printed. A couple of us from our wedding. A couple of our group at the beach house in Hilton Head and a couple of Lori with Lilly in Russia. A few others that were random of family and friends. Why did Lori print these photos? Why did she hide them in this secret compartment?
I carefully placed the photos back and closed the compartment at the bottom of the bin. I rotated the container and faced the top of the bin. It looked no different than the bottom only I now know that this side will be significantly deeper. About a foot deeper based on the overall size of the box. There were handles on the side which allowed the box to be carried like a suitcase. When looking at the top, it measures about 3ft long, 1ft wide and 1ft deep. I unlatched the top to look inside.
Resting closest to the top was a sketch pad. I removed it to reveal a series of compartments. Some of them were small, others medium and a few large. The box itself was mysterious as I have never seen a container like this. Inside each compartment was a series of pictures. A photo box? This container is perhaps designed for storing photos. Or more likely, it has some other purpose, but when Lori found it, she envisioned it as some where and some way to store her pictures. This is one of the many, many, many remarkable traits that Lori has. Over the last year, I have been walking through a perpetual scavenger hunt that Lori started planning over 40 years ago. I can only hope that years from now, I am still playing the game until the final clue leads me back to her.
But as I continue to type away, I realize that I haven't even begun to tell the story that is captured in the title of this journal entry. For that, I had to open the sketch pad that I removed from the bin. Not unlike many of the other notebooks and sketch pads I have encountered, this one was mostly blank too. In some aspects, I think that Lori was more attracted to the style of the notebook than she was to any one plan for its use. I never paid much attention to it, but now that I do, I think that Lori found the pad first and the content second. While I imagine that most others have some sort of content that they need to get on paper and therefore go out and purchase the pad. Who's on first?
I have possibly hundreds of pages of notebooks filled with things that Lori has left for me. I also have thousands of blank sheets in dozens of notebooks. My point is that Lori would buy notebook after notebook, but inside each one was only a handful of used pages. And this sketch pad was not different at all. The book is hardcover. It is blue with a white sticker on the cover with the word "Sketchbook". It looks old, which it might be. The only indication I get for a date is from the contents about 10 pages in, a list marked "Items for Trip". The list includes items that are clearly for one of our beach trips. Since there are no baby items or references to Lilly, I can assume that this is from 2005 or 2006.
In addition to the packing list, the book had several sketches. One of a little girl with a baby bird and a butterfly. Another one of a dog running. There were several pictures of penguins and other birds. Lots of blank pages, then almost halfway through, there is a folded sheet of paper. On the page to the left is a sketch of a tree. To the right is a sketch of the same tree and a little girl. In looking at the sketches, there is really nothing special. If I were to line up all of the sketches I have from Lori, I am certain that these two would not be anywhere near the top of her best work chart. They were very simple.
I opened the folded sheet of paper to find this poem written by Lori.
A little girl, just barely three,
Walked up to a tree,
And said would you be friends with me?
Why would you want
to be friends with me,
You know that I am just a tree.
We have nothing in common,
Not a thing at all,
Why should I be friends
With someone so small?
It doesn’t matter to me,
That you are a tree,
I don’t even care
That your branches are bare.
I don’t understand,
Please help me see,
Why a human like you,
Wants a friend like me.
I have nothing to offer,
Nothing at all,
But you still want to be friends,
With a tree so tall.
You give me shade in summer,
And beauty in fall,
It doesn’t matter to me,
Not much at all.
You brighten my spring
With your dazzling blossoms,
And in the winter protect me,
From the frozen rain droppings.
So Mr. Tree,
Can you answer me please,
Would you mind being friends
With a girl like me?
I never could have imagined,
Not a second at all,
That I would say yes
To a girl so small.
A friendship we will share,
As the seasons pass,
And this I will promise,
Our friendship will last.
I have no idea when Lori wrote this or what was the driving force behind it. Perhaps those answers will come to me at another time. Click here to see the scanned sketches that I found next to this poem.
As I prepared this page to include the pictures of what we have been up to over the past couple of months, I can't help but feel sad that any new pictures we have, won't include Lori. So when I find something that Lori has hidden in her craft factory cabinet, inside a container that is mysterious in nature, inside a sketchbook that I have never seen, it feels to me like a new memory has been made. And just like looking at the pictures from something Lilly and I did just a month ago, it makes me smile.
Here are some more pictures for you to look at it. Click here.