A "Quiet" Weekend

We decided to pack up the car and make for Savannah for the long weekend this past weekend. We decided to take the route through Georgia's desolate farm lands to get us there quicker and because we seemingly have had better luck not getting lost on this route than you ever did, we figured it was a good choice. We didn't, however, take into consideration that we would be stopping at the most ingenious Arby's in the world in Thompson, GA, the place where "nobody knows your name" and everyone moves in slow motion. I believe I walked out of that place with fewer brain cells than when we had arrived. None the less, we made pretty decent time and arrived shortly before 10:00 pm.

The weather was perfect on Saturday and so we decided to head out to the beach early, so as to beat the insane traffic that would surely come with a holiday weekend. While this wasn't our first 'real' trip to the beach, it was our first official one. With the impending tropical storm, Beryl, looming right off shore, the waves were amazing. Garrett, Brandie, and the crew joined us not long after we arrived. We were having a great time hanging out, playing in the water, and messing around in the sand with the kids. But there was always the thought in the back of my mind that you were supposed to be there. I thought about all of the times last year that you would ask the night before what time we were going to the beach the next day and I would say around 9:30 or something and you would reply, "Ugh! Why so early! The ocean probably isn't awake then!" Or how the next morning you would reluctantly and painstakingly wake up and mosey into the car with your 1980's sunglasses on, that you would have no doubt criticized me for wearing, for the sake of being too lazy to try to find a parking space at the beach or being too cheap to pay the meter (please refer post "Wash before applying"). Or how once we got out there and would start generously applying sunscreen that you would proudly announce that you didn't need sunscreen because you wanted to get a tan but then be dumbfounded a few hours later at how you got burnt. You would lay out your towel, put on your sunglasses, hook yourself up to your iPod, and then drift into some sort of sleep, until you would randomly pop up with an opinion to the ongoing conversation. This was an amazing skill you had. We would all think we could talk freely, assuming you were asleep, and then BAM! there you were adding your two sense. We would later learn to start mouthing the words or signing our meaning, as if we were trying to be quiet around a baby.

Sunday we went over to Garrett and Brandie's for a BBQ. During a light conversation on the back porch with Brandie and I, mom mentioned the little rhyme that your grandmother had taught you when you were about 3 years old. Mom told us about how you would place your hand on your hip, shake your finger, and say:                                             "I'm a cute little girl,

                               with a cute little figure,

                                but stand back boys,

                                until a I get a little bigger"

You would do this for people everywhere you went, soaking up the attention you would grab from it. Even then you were a dramatic show stopper.


We had to leave on Monday, but decided to go to IHOP for breakfast with mom and Sophie before we hit the road. I know how much you loved that place and it was a little strange to go eat there without you. After breakfast we said goodbye to mom and got on the road. Somewhere between Statesboro and Macon, while Reagan and Jared slept, it hit me. The thing that was bothering me so terribly bad all weekend, the one thing that had me sitting just a little off, the thing that I suddenly realized that was missing from this weekend that would have been present had you been there. A throw down argument/yelling match amongst you, mom, and I. You know the one I am talking about. It would inevitably happen every time the three of us were in a room for more than a few hours together. It would start small and then explode and end with one of us storming out or slamming a door. An argument so loud that earshot meant that you were within a few miles of us. But it didn't occur this past weekend...and do you know, I felt truly lost without it. I allowed the emptiness of the moment and highway 16 consume me.

Yes, it was a quiet weekend, but the silence was deafening.