Brian and Me | Christmas, 1978 ish
Yesterday Nathaniel invited me into his room to play with him.
“Let’s play bad guy and good guy, Mommy! No, wait, you be Wonder Woman and I’ll be the Human Torch, no wait…”
At some point I threw in, “Hey, do you want to play a game that I played with my brother Brian when we were kids? Space! We can pretend we’re flying a spaceship and visiting planets!”
“Yes! That’s so cool! I want to play Space!”
My son and I speak with many exclamation marks. We’re enthusiastic about a lot of things. I love this quality about him, about our family – the Adventure Club loves life.
When I helped him find the items that we could use for our maps, mission control, moon rocks, and shooting stars, I thought about playing Space with my late brother. We weren’t too much older than we were in the photo above. I remember piling things up on top of our spaceship (my bed) – a broken radio, a working radio, stuffed animal passengers and, possibly, child-sized chairs (Dangerous! Sorry, Mom!). We’d take off on our missions and explore the galaxy, making it home just in time for afternoon snacks.
I’m not sure how often we played this game and I don’t recall too many of the details, but it’s one of the clear memories that I have of playing with my brother. As some people do at Christmastime, I often think about my own childhood. Since Brian has been gone for 20 years now, these thoughts bring with them a mix of emotions, high and low. I remember sneaking into each other’s rooms on many Christmas Eves, climbing into each other’s beds, and speculating if Santa had arrived yet. We were so excited that we could barely sleep! Sometimes we really didn’t. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I remember the first heart-wrenching year that I spent Christmas without him…the heaviness of the pain, at least. Thankfully, the details aren’t really there anymore.
Back to the present – playing Space with my son and being sure to make space for playing with my son. I can’t tell you how important these experiences are to me. This year I feel like I’ve really “come into my own” in terms of my values, and I feel like they will continue to deepen over 2015. The Adventure Club isn’t just about taking physical journeys…there are plenty of adventures right here at home. And I feel so grateful to be present for all of them.
xoxo