I still love my school bus !!!!!

I have been told that when I was coming up on my second birthday ALL I wanted was a school bus. No one really knows why, or at least they can't remember why, but they all seem to remember that all I wanted for my birthday was a school bus.

Somehow, mom managed to find me a school bus. But not just ANY school bus, a Dinky toy version of Wayne Industries' flat nosed school bus !!!

I know I got it for my second birthday because in the last few weeks as we've sorted through pictures for Mom's then for my brother Scott's memorial services, I found pictures of me holding the bus with a cake on the table in front of me. The number on the cake is a prominent '2'!

For over forty years, I've owned my little yellow school bus ... but for the last twenty or so, I haven't seen it much less held it.

That changed earlier this week when I was sorting through stuff at mom's ... I found a box in the basement that was full of books, toys, and other assorted items from my childhood. Finding my library of 'Big Little' books brought a teary smile to my face, the assorted trucks, cars and little people from our various Fisher Price sets took my breath away for a moment as I remembered how many hours I spent playing with the school, the garage the various other bits and pieces. But it was when I pulled my yellow school bus out of the bottom of the box, buried under some old comic and a handful of battered Mad magazines, that I cried.

I cried at the memories this battered and dinged up bus recalled within me, but more than that I cried at the simple realization of what has been lost in the last few weeks ... losing Mom was hard enough, but losing Scott twenty days later was utterly devastating. In three short weeks my world shifted and I became the oldest, and the last member of my immediate family ... as I rolled the bus across the basement floor I wept at the enormity of what has happened, and how different my world suddenly is ...

I have a fabulous and supportive extended family that have been there every step of this journey, and who have offered love, care and support when my knees have buckled and I've stumbled, and I have an incredible circle of friends who have continued to love and care for me too ... and I would be horribly remiss if I didn't mention the support the good folks of Flesherton and Eugenia have offered since this began ... but even with that circle of support and care, this journey is at times trying and extremely tiring.

Some days even getting out of bed is a challenge.

This week as I once again held my beloved yellow school bus, part of me was delighted at rediscovering a childhood treasure that remains as beautiful now as it was 40 years ago, but a bigger part of me recoiled at the thought of what has transpired in recent weeks, and the profound enormity of what I have faced.

As the black rubber wheels rolled across the floor for the first time in 20 years, I wished that for a moment I could once again be sitting at my Grandparents in Waterloo, playing with my bus on their living room carpet as Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Drake, Scott, and the other members of my extended family filled the space with conversation, laughter and togetherness ... my heart aches not only for Mom and Scott, but for a return to that time and place that slipped away so easily as time rolled on ...

Thankfully, when I pick up my little yellow school bus for a brief moment I can feel all of the memories associated with it over the years, and for a fleeting instant I can once again be on my grandparents' living room floor in the middle of a family circle of conversation and togetherness ... thank God for touchstones along the way !