Month: April 2013

  • Second Star to the Right and Straight on Till Morning

    Sunday April 7, 2013

    Somewhere on the road between Georgia and Tennessee

     

    I’m not entirely sure how to write this one. Fresh off a week of so many feelings its hard to decide where to start. So Ill start like always. Just typing a few words.

     

    Currently I am sitting on a charter bus on the road back from another trip to Florida with the East Clinton Band. This is the third one Ive done with this group and aside from a little rain it went off without a hitch. Everything went smoothly. Everyone did a great job; we had a great clinic and overall a great time. I got to hit all the favorite rides and food stops and try some new ones. It was a great trip. Just one thing missing.

    See each time before I did a trip like this, Steph would go. She would be there with me every step of the way baby sitting me while I babysat the band. She was always there, every trip and had been looking forward to this one as well. It was a strange feeling pulling out of EC on the bus and she wasn’t there. Going through some parts of the trip were especially emotional. I put on a good poker face so most of my EC crew is probably saying “really?”.

    Magic Kingdom was always a favorite and we stopped there last summer on our family vacation. With so many things being so fresh there she was on my mind all day. We rode her favorite, Splash Mountain and I couldn’t help but feel her laughing as we sat in the front and wettest row in the boat.

    What really hit me though was the Christmas store in Downtown Disney. See that was one place we always stopped at. In fact a stop at a Christmas store was always a must-do on any of our trips. Christmas was always our favorite time of year so naturally combine an out of town trip and a Christmas store and we were there. Each time we stopped at the one at Downtown we’d look at all the ornaments, talk of how much we loved the season and what our plans might be this year. This was true right up until last summer when we went for the last time. We did all those things knowing full well what may lie ahead.

    And so this week I returned. And I did all those things. And I found the ornament that we would have bought; we always bought one when we stopped there. But I couldn’t buy it. Not yet. Maybe this summer if I go back during my family vacation. Maybe. But for now I ride home from a wonderful trip. And there was lots of good for me in this. Disney was a place that we always loved to go together and traveled to with our bands. So in that I was immersed in reminders. And the memories flooding back were all happy. In fact I truly felt Steph with me on this trip to the point where I could hear her laugh on the rides and feel her walking by me. We would always send the students and parents back to the bus after the fireworks at EPCOT and go get the medical forms together. Its oddly appropriate that I did that by myself last night. I walked alone out of the park. And yet I wasn’t alone. She walked and laughed by my side as she always did and always will.

    Second star to the right, and straight on till morning; the directions to Neverland. Why? Because there time stands still. There we never grow old or up. It is a place of childhood. I guess that’s what I did in my mind this week. And I realized the memories never fade and neither does Steph’s presence. She’s checking in on me. I know this and she is smiling.