Remember Me?

I haven’t even left the house yet and I’m already waxing romantical thoughts about my boys.

All three of them.

Even the one that keeps putting his fingers in my nose and ears.

“You have One and One ear Mama!”
“Yes”
“You have One Noses!”
“Yes”

And the One that keeps jumping from the furniture and head butting me.

“Mama? Mama?”
“Yes.”
“Mama? Mama?”
“Yes.”
“Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? ”
“Yes.”
“Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? ”
“Yes.”

And that one I never see.

“Do you remember me?”
“Yes.”

When I return from California, Scott will be in his last week of school. To help you understand the momentousness of this occasion let me just tell you that I have known my husband since I was fourteen.

We met in Japanese class when I was a freshman in high school, and he a sophomore. We spent the next three years in Japanese class together. He taunted, teased and pulled my hair. There was no love lost.

Then he went into the Military and he wrote once in a while. The next year I graduated and went off to earn my four year degree in Getting Out of The Freaking House. While away I discovered. Email. This new fangled invention. In 1993, I knew two people with email.

Scott was one of them.

Fast forward three or four years depending on how you count. (I count badly) Scott and I arrived back in town the same week. He freshly discharged from the Navy and I, freshly B.A.’d. (And not the fun kind).

We were the only four people in a movie theater (we each brought a friend) and we exchanged pleasantries.

I was headed back to College Town, I had a job set up. He was headed up to Seattle to ‘do the school thing’. Nice to see you, call me some time. Yada, Yada.

Two weeks later, he invited me to a party his folks were throwing in honor of his return. We agreed to have lunch. Nothing serious. I was leaving at the end of the month and he soon after.

By Friday we were at the Movies, on an “Official Date”.

One week later My mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.

He took a job in town.

I quit my job in CollegeTown, took a job in town.

By the end of the summer my mom was doing radiation therapy and Scott and I were ‘dating’. For real.

He enrolled at the local college so that he could continue working at the summer job he had taken that had turned into a ‘real job’.

My mom recovered. My parents moved out of town. Scott and I moved in together. We got married. We bought a house. After six years of starts and stops, Scott finished his BA. I decided to start a Master’s program and so did he.

Two kids later.

I finished my degree last June, when Wah was four months old.

Scott has his last class next week. He still has to write a paper. But then he is done.

I met Scott when I was 14. Eighteen years ago.

In the 18 years that I’ve known him, he has been in school thirteen of those years. We have been together for the last ten years. He has been in school every one of those years.

He has classes twice a week, forty minutes away, until nine or ten at night. He spends each weekend writing papers and studying. Granted it was worse when I was in school too. We switched off watching the kids on the weekend to study.

I’m looking forward to this weekend, to recharge, for myself and my children. But as always I’m sad to leave my little family and I’m sad to miss out on the few hours of the week I have with my husband. He works long hours. He studies hard and at the end of the day he is always smiling. Sometimes it’s a bemused smile. But it is always a smile. And it is always for me.

Well, sometimes it’s for the little fingers and feet that meet him at the door. Arms outstretched to be picked up “DA! DA! DA!”