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the boy

Friday Afternoon

Friday 14 June 2019 | 0 Comments

The Boy spent the week at scout day camp. Every morning it was the same: "I don't want to go!" Every afternoon, it was the same, too: "Today was so much fun!"

I arrived this afternoon for the normal pickup time only to discover a parking lot. "Oh, there must have been some communication about a final ceremony that I missed," I thought as I hustled to the interior of the church where the camp was held.

Sure enough, everyone was in the main meeting room -- the sanctuary is what it would normally be called, but I think this particular church used "worship center" as its preferred nomenclature -- and all the scouts and their parents were there. And of course, someone was handing out awards.

I seized up a little: the Boy doesn't get awards in situations like this often. At least that's been my perception. I couldn't care less, but I think it could.

So when his name was called for second place in his den for the bb gun range, I felt a little bit of relief. Everyone needs the encouragement of public recognition from time to time. Even I like it occasionally, though I find it embarrasses me a bit, as well.

When we got home, the Boy was eager to show K and Papa his certificate and, more importantly, his three days' targets. Each day showed significant improvement.

"See, the first day I didn't even hit the target..."

And after dinner, he was eager to take his own bb gun into the backyard for some target practice. We don't have much in the way of targets: we tend to shoot at leaves on a magnolia tree that has a large oak behind it: that way, if we miss, we just hit the oak. And if we miss the oak, there are only more trees behind that.

Afterward, since we hadn't gone exploring in a while, we headed out for some exploring.

And lastly, because they'd had a campfire-building contest ("We could only use flint and steel to start the fire, and we could only burn things we'd found around the fire pit," he'd explained), we made a fire. Partly because the Boy wanted to, partly because, in going through Nana's and Papa's papers, we got inspired to do the same, and the upshot of all that is simple: we have a lot of paper to shred or burn, and burning is faster. And more fun, E would insist.

Reading with the Boy

Wednesday 12 June 2019 | 0 Comments

We try to get the Boy to read a little every night. Tonight we worked on L's old book about spiders. I found the place we'd left off, but the Boy insisted that he'd finished with K last night.

"Well, it doesn't hurt to read it again," I said. It might have sounded like I was just being lazy, but being able to read a tricky passage fluently will build his confidence. We learn by repetition, especially recognition of new words.

"The back part of a spider's body is called the abdomen," he began.

"Wow -- you read that tough word like a pro," I added.

"What word?"

"Abdomen."

He sighed. "Daddy, I recognized the word."

"I know. And that's a long word to know. How many letters?"

He counted: "Seven."

"You recognized a seven letter word!"

"No, wait," he said, counting hopefully again. "No, just seven."

He continued, stumbling a bit: "It has the spider's hear -- hear?"

"Heart," I helped.

"Heart and the spinnerets, which make silk," he continued.

"Spinnerets?!" I gasped. "Are you kidding? You read that like a pro as well!"

"But daddy, I stumbled over a" and he paused to count. "A five-letter word." He often stumbles over words, words that sometimes surprise me. And he recognizes and reads fluently words that sometimes surprise me. It's part of learning to read.

"That's okay," I reassured. "You stumbled over that word, but you nailed 'spinnerets.'"'

Many of my students over the years have face similar struggles, and struggling readers are not confident readers. I've sat with kids who were reading, asked them to read aloud, and heard difficult passages come out like this: "It has the spider's hea hear -- whatever -- and the spin spin -- I don't know -- which make the silk." If that's what's going on in their head as they read silently, and there's no reason to think it wouldn't be, it's no wonder they don't feel confident with reading: the struggle produces nothing but a confusing text. And they're likely to anticipate all this: before they begin reading, they've convinced themselves that they won't understand it. And all of this builds and calcifies into not a mere reluctance to reading but a positive aversion to it.

Confidence eliminates those "whatevers" and "I-don't-knows." And so I have the Boy read books a second, third, and fourth time.

"But I already know this book," he complains.

"I know -- that's the point," I think.

Building

Monday 10 June 2019 | 0 Comments

A legacy of Nana: she kept so many of my old toys, and we’ve recycled them, giving them to our own kids. L was never interested in most of them; the Boy, though is a different story.

What does that say about gender differences? Our son is interested in his father’s old toys; our daughter isn’t. Is that nature? Nurture? Both? We’ve never told our kids “this is a boy’s toy” or “this is a girl’s toy,” but they’ve gravitated that way. Perhaps it’s so saturated in our culture that it’s impossible to escape.

The Boy’s latest interest: my old Girder and Panel building set. I was about his age when I got it, and I loved it immediately. The Boy had a similar reaction.

It took him a while to get the hang of snapping the girders together, and the windows were as frustrating for him as they were and still are for me, but his verdict was unequivocal. “I love it.”

Exploring with the Boys

Thursday 06 June 2019 | 0 Comments

Sifting Through the Layers

Wednesday 29 May 2019 | 1 Comment

I spent the better part of today going through pictures, digital and print, looking for images of Nana to use during Saturday's memorial. I scanned about 30 images and found about 60 others in our digital collection, and I'm only through 2013. It was much like looking at old pictures of our children: we always feel like our children have always looked like they do today even though we know they haven't. The changes are so gradual that it takes an image from the somewhat-distant past to jar us into understanding -- realizing -- anew that our children are on an ever sliding spectrum, that they in fact don't look like this for very long at all.

So it was with Nana. I got used to what she looked like now and forgot all about the Nana of my youth, when she was simply "Mom." And then I began going through pictures and rediscovering images of Nana before I even existed, images of Nana when she was my age, images of Nana when she was the Boy's age.

I saw Nanas I never knew. I saw Nana as a young lady, about to go out for a night on the town, looking every bit like someone off the Mad Men series.

I saw Nana as a senior in high school, just a little older than most of my students, and I wondered what she was like in class.

I saw Nana when she was a mother but younger than I am now, with a version of me that's probably about E's age. It's as hard to imagine Nana climbing up into a barn as it is to imagine her bedridden and frustrated.

And now that she's passed, all these versions live on in various people's memories. "That was about the time I met your mother," Papa explained about the Mad Men photo. Her best friend since forever likely remembers first-grade Nana as they went to school together from kindergarten through graduation.

The rest of the day I spent working on Nana's obituary. Ever the English teacher, I examined examples before starting to write hers and I noticed I finally have an answer to students' common question when learning the difference between active and passive voice: "Mr. Scott, when do we use passive voice?"

"In obituaries, children, almost exclusively."

On Monday, May 27, Naomi Ruth Williams Scott, wife, mother, sister, and grandmother, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her family after a six-month struggle. Naomi will be lovingly remembered by her husband of nearly 55 years, Melvin; her son, Gary; her daughter-in-law, Kinga; her grandchildren, Lena and Emil; and sisters-in-law Laverne Williams, Diane Mathis, Yvonne Van Seeters, and Mary Barnes, as well as many nieces and nephews, and countless friends. She was preceded in death by her father, Lewis Williams; her mother, Ruby Gordon Williams; and her two brothers, Nelson and Wallace Williams.

A native of Indian Land, South Carolina, Naomi graduated from Indian Land High School and married Melvin Scott in 1964. They lived for several years in the Charlotte/Rock Hill area relocating to the southwest Virginia/northeast Tennessee area, where they lived for over thirty years.

Versatile and skilled, Naomi worked various jobs through her life, including jobs in a flower shop, a printing and finishing shop, a travel agency, later in life, her own business. She would have argued, however, that her most important job by far, her only truly important job, was being a mother. She was a dedicated and loving mother who provided all who knew her a clear example of what it really means to be a mother.

Naomi was a very active church member in all the congregations she attended. She served as a deaconess in the Worldwide Church of God, where she also sang in the choir and provided quiet leadership through example for members. A firm believer in Jesus, she never wavered in her faith and leaned heavily on His love and promises.

The memorial service for Naomi will be this Saturday, June 1 at 3 PM at Woodruff Road Christian Church, 20 Bell Road, Greenville, SC. Following the service, there be time for fellowship and visitation with light refreshments to give everyone an opportunity to share with each other their memories of Naomi.

As Naomi felt special tenderness to all children but especially her son and grandchildren, the family requests instead of flowers memorial donations to the Shriners Hospital for Children and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Since her faith was so important to her and because the church has shown so much support in this time of need, the family would be honored with donations in Naomi’s memory to Woodruff Road Christian Church.

But bottom line, I look at these pictures, especially the most recent, of Nana and Papa, and it hits me again and again:

Probably my favorite picture of my parents

I simply can't believe she's gone. I imagine we'll all be experiencing that for many months.

The Day After

Tuesday 28 May 2019 | 0 Comments

Normal is a relative thing. We are constantly, it seems, redefining and adjusting our normal. Most of those adjustments are relatively small; throughout our lives, we, at least a handful of times, have to reorient our lives in ways that are inconceivable until we're living through them.

We're all going through the latter now, dealing with Nana's passing and all the changes that come with that.

We go through things for the first time, like sitting in a mortuary discussing options, choosing things we'd never really considered, like which urn, how many death certificates, which guest book.

We write things we'd never written, which sometimes break rules we'd always followed -- an obituary is absolutely filled with passive voice: "She is survived by..." "She was preceded by..." "She is remembered by..."

We have conversations we'd never had, like discussions about what songs we might like at a memorial, when to have a final moment with someone, when to have a memorial.

And yet in the midst of all these experiences we'd never want to have, little changes sparkle with joy. Papa steadfastly stayed by Nana's side for the last several years as her condition worsened, giving up church, giving up concerts, soccer games, and other things because he refused to leave her side. Now, with the thought that Nana's most basic wish would be that he get out and live, those things are happening. Sitting around the small fire as the Boy makes smores; going to a small, end-of-the-year award ceremony; sitting on the back deck with me, sipping some scotch and reveling in fond memories.

We begin to catch our breath and move on. It is, after all, what Nana would want.

Heading Out

Sunday 26 May 2019 | 0 Comments

First Week

Friday 24 May 2019 | 0 Comments

The first week is over. Nana and Papa moved in last Saturday, and we began setting up a new normal. The morning ritual is different: in the past, K worked on everyone's lunch as I worked on breakfast. Now, we both get up a bit earlier, and I work on lunches as K takes care of Nana's early morning needs. The evening ritual is a bit different: I tend to put the Boy to bed more often as K takes care of Nana's evening needs. Afternoons have been in flux as we still try to get everything in its new order. There are still things that linger, but the Boy positively loves having Nana and Papa to visit with after school. He's parked his large box of Legos, with Nana's and Papa's blessing, in their room and plays there every day after school.

A gentle slide into our new reality.

Crossing Over Again

Sunday 19 May 2019 | 0 Comments

Evening Shooting

Wednesday 15 May 2019 | 0 Comments

The renovation project is nearing its end. The final exterior painting was completed today, but K decided she wanted to change one color -- the trim around the new windows will soon match the color of our newly-painted shutters.

The brown shutters seem to tone everything else down. Those old, peeling, white shutters just made the house look unplanned and neglected. With freshly-washed brick and newly-painted shutters, the house doesn't really look like it's from the late sixties -- except for the architecture, that is.

In the evening, some shooting.