Ice Cream for Lunch

I was 13 and my baby brother was 9.  Although Dad would pridefully take us on his rental property to turn donuts ourselves in the El Ranchero, we weren't legally allowed to drive.  So on anniversaries or holidays, or days he was just thinking about her, we would slide into the bench seat half car/half truck, moldy carpet smelling, ripped seat and if you're not careful ripped thigh, beat up but beefed up motored monster and head to see Mom's mausoleum stone.

We would stay a few minutes, awkwardly in silence.  Us kids staring for a minute before looking around at other things, as if we were bored, but really we just didn't know how else to break the silence in our own thoughts.  Sometimes, Dad's halitosis breath would bark, "Okay, let's go," and on to Grandma and Grandpa Kilponen's headstone, but not before a brief walk passed our middle brother Christopher's headstone.  It was a family reunion of sorts, I suppose. But sometimes it was his alcoholic weeping that would make it even that much more awkward.  His cries of, "Hee, heeee. HEEEEE," made me both want to cry and hit him all at the same time.  His alcoholic breath--yes, he drove that day too.

Inevitability, invariably, barks or weeps, after the cemetery we hit the Thrifty's across the street before driving home, or off to our Grandparents' to work in the yard at the old house that he never sold.  If you're not familiar with Thrifty's, it was just your early 1990's drug store with the most fabulous ice cream counter. Fabulous on all my 13 year old accounts.  It was the only place in the whole entire world that you cold get chocolate malted crunch ice cream.  Even today, that is still my favourite flavour!

It's kind of a miracle actually, that we would be treated to this.  After all, one of my most significant memories of my dad was that he bought me a bottle of water after the Cherry Festival he took us to on my 18th birthday (in early June in California when it was already HOT outside).  That was like gifts from my birthday, Christmas, and Easter from the last 5 years all rolled into one.  Okay, that was literally what it was. Dad gave us money on our birthday and on Christmas.  No gifts, no wrapping, no fuss. Sometimes his horses had done well and we'd wake up to a pile of money under our congealed oatmeal for no special reason. But then sometimes we weren't allowed to go to the movies, and we certainly didn't have cable most of the time, just because.  He had his reasons.  After mom passed away, we grew up very restricted compared to what she had made us accustomed to.  I suppose it ungrateful to scoff at no presents and a gift of $100 twice a year when others don't even get that. But that's where my 13-18 year old mind sat when he lived and she didn't.

I digress...

So this ice cream after the cemetery was a huge boost to the spirit!  I got a double scoop, chocolate malted crunch on the bottom, pistachio nut on the top.  Sometimes a strawberry cheesecake would switch out with the pistachio, but those were the goods.

I talk about this because ice cream has become a form of comfort for me, especially in times of death. Each time in my adult life upon revisiting my mom, Dad, Christopher, my grandparents, I drag Andrew across the street to what-is-it-called now? Savon? Walgreens? I don't live there.  Next visit it could change.  And I plan to drag the girls there too, actually Abby has already traveled her maiden voyage.

But this is what brings me here today.  Our family has been sick all week with the worst norovirus/stomach flu you can imagine.  The bathroom didn't see us as much as the trashcan on the couch did.  We didn't eat for days.  Nothing would settle.  Nothing felt good.
And then my sweet, amazing Grandma finally took her last breath yesterday.

So when my innocent, learning the art of manipulation, sweet little 3 year old asks me if we can have ice cream for lunch--after a week of not eating, and the days leading up to my emotional state today having wrecked my need to be perfect collide in reality--I say yes.

Because no matter what life has given in the past, life is too short not to forgive others, forgive yourself, and not let yourself say yes to ridiculousness once in awhile.

Ice cream for lunch?--yes.

And as much as Dad didn't give me, or even took away from me, he still gave me lessons.  He still helped shape my heart in the way that I've learned needs to be reshaped.  You see these girls today, how could having gone through that not have been a good thing? We are all here to live and learn, and how do we do that?  With a spirit of love in our hearts.