a little lesson in love.

23rd December 2011 | uncategorized | 2 comments

“The more people we love, the more we are liable to be hurt, and not only by the people we love, but for the people we love.” ~Madeleine L’Engle

tonight i delivered the hardest goodbye of my life. elias and bram {along with their family, of course} are moving to wyoming. they leave tomorrow.

i have done my fair share of crying tonight, because my sillies are gone. no more “ready or not here i come” “I’M RIGHT HERE!” or “elias, that was only funny when you first said it six years ago.” no more watching bram’s teeth fall out or seeing them without noticing huge changes in appearance. those days are gone.

when i say, as i often do, that bramwell and elias have taught me how to love, what i mean is that i am who i am today because i love them. i am the stephanie orefice of right now because i spoke to elias when he was just an unknown in his mom’s tummy and i held him as a baby even though he screamed at me. i beamed with pride when he first looked at me and said “teh!” i remember watching him stumble around figuring out the whole walking thing, and i remember him pooping on me.

and then i remember looking down at baby bram, and the day i finally held him and thought i was killing him because he wouldn’t stop crying. i remember singing him songs to sleep in the nursery and being very consistent in the way i’d say his name when i first saw him. i remember the evolution of his brothers name, from “e-i” to “ias” to “alice” to “e-alice” and finally elias.

i remember one day when bram was a baby and we couldn’t find elias in the corps. he was 5, and he went missing. i will never forget the way the world seemed to stop and i couldn’t breathe and then sitting with his mom on the pew after he’d been found playing a spontaneous game of hide-and-seek he’d forgot to inform us of.

elias inflated my heart and then bramwell filled it.

when i think of them, i know what it means to love someone so much you would lay down your life. i know what it means to put someone before yourself. i know what it means to show love in action, whether it is a spy mission or dinosaur adventure or a play date to help get to the next level of lego star wars. i get it.

i have learned about love from two tiny babies that grew into toddlers and then preschoolers and elementary schoolers.

here are some pictures, because i am a very sentimental person. with the lyrics from “gavin’s song” by marc broussard, because it’s made me burst into tears for the past couple of months, thinking of this day.

i wish you freedom, i wish you peace. i wish you nights of stars that beckon you to sleep.  

i wish you heartache that leaves you more of a man. i wish i could be there. but i can’t.    

i wish you places that sit so still, where people never ever change and never ever will.    

i wish i could hold you and make you understand. i wish i could be there, but i can’t. 

be good for your mama, cuz she’ll need a hand to hold. boy she loves you, more than you’ll ever know. 

there are rhymes and there are reasons, and times when nothing stays the same.

but you know my love still remains.

i wish you wisdom, i wish you years. i wish you armies to conquer all your fears.

i wish you courage for all that life demands. i wish i could be there, but i can’t.

i wish we were together, i wish i was home. i wish there were nights where i was never alone.

i know i’ve said it, but i’ll say it once again: i wish i could be there, but i can’t.

hearts hearts hearts hearts…

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the day i didn’t have coffee.

10th December 2011 | everyday life | 2 comments

today i:

• curled up in the fetal position, crying, and declared “I JUST WANT TO READ!”
• smashed my face into the floor, crying, and declared “i am just so tired.”
• sat on my toilet seat, crying, and wished my bathroom was black like the insides of my soul
• sat on the bathroom counter, crying, and watched the tears magically swell up in my eyes
• got a headache when i moved my head too fast
• got a headache when i moved my head too slow
• got a headache reading
• got a headache when my mom rustled a plastic bag
• got a headache when the dvd player wouldn’t play harry potter and the goblet of fire
• got a headache while i was hanging up clothes
• felt like i had no real reason for being alive

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Family style.

11th September 2011 | dinner, everyday life | 0 comments

Today I made dinner for my family. Of course I found the recipe on pinterest, where else? Chicken Satay, but skewerless because we already went to the store about 4 times before realizing we didn’t have any, and asparagus.

Steps 1-4. Mix a strange series of ingredients together. Soy sauce and peanut butter? Brown sugar and rice vinegar? Stare at bowl. Stir ingredients. Marinate.

Which turns into:

 Dinner.

We’ve all got the lives we’ve lived up to today, and they’re all different. We’ve all been a part of some things and missed out on others. I never learned how to ride a bike or do a somersault.

So many of the things I missed out on are mostly because of my only-childness. Like family meals. I love being around families who sit and have meals together. It’s one of the things I love the most about the Birksfam. Eating dinner together. We never did that in my house.

I was at daycare into the evening and often was picked up from daycare to be taken straight to dance or piano lessons. McDonalds it was.

We inherit a lot from our families, but not just in things we acquire from them. We inherit a lot in what we desire because of them. So I have a small list.

1. I want to really know my children, beyond the convenience of family relations. Even if they grow up to hate me, I want to know their quirks and their tastes in things. I want to listen and understand them.
2. I want to have an open house, where friends and family and visitors and friends of friends can come and stay, even if it’s just on a couch. Maryann Covert is my hero of hospitality.
3. I want traditions, traditions beyond me putting olives on my fingers every Thanksgiving regardless of age. Traditions that are unique and meaningful and can’t even be exampled now because they have to organically develop.
4. and I want to have family meals. Jesus often ate with people, and I want a family that can gather together and eat and laugh and share, just like in commercials and in tv shows. I guess no matter how old I get, I’ll never really let go of my mental image of what a surviving family looks like.

So that’s that.
The other day I got to have dinner with one of my fave families of all time: the Markhams. I would take an evening with these boys over most anything else you could offer me.

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