Category: Nostalgia

On a rainy Sunday in May in Ocean City, Md., I sat alone in my in-laws’ beach condo and cried. I had stayed back to clean while my family ventured out to watch the new Star Wars movie “Solo.” Since cleaning is not my favorite activity, I took a break to check Facebook. And when I did, I saw that a friend of mine from high school was in her last stages of Inflammatory Breast Cancer. She was 43. I called my mom and my tears bubbled over.

My classmate’s death got me thinking a lot about high school. Mitchell will be a freshman in August. When my dad asked him if he was looking forward to it, he said no. He doesn’t want to be the youngest in the school again. Also, he dreads his summer reading assignment of To Kill a Mockingbird and the test that follows the first week of school.

I lack sympathy. Compared to my transition to high school, his seems benign.

After moving from Ohio to Minnesota between sixth- and seventh-grade, my dad promised I would graduate from high school there. Two years later, he broke that promise and we headed to Muncie, Ind. To say my mom and I loved Minnesota would be an understatement. It is a beautiful, progressive, clean, albeit cold, state. Indiana seemed like a step back into time.

Goodbye Party, North Mankato, Minn., 1989

Due to my dad’s late decision to change jobs, we didn’t leave Minnesota until the beginning of August. Our house wasn’t ready and hotel space in Muncie was limited because of a tennis tournament in town. We got stuck in a run-down motel on the east end near the Muncie Mall.

For two weeks.

The Muncie Mall has improved greatly over the years, but in 1989, cigarette smoke permeated through the building, and the mall had no decent lighting. I loathed our evenings wandering the mall’s dim hallways, loitering in J.C. Penney while my parents picked out curtains.

Time passed, though, and we finally moved into our house. School started at the large, diverse, public city school I picked. When I say I picked it, I mean it. My parents let me choose what part of Muncie we would live in based on the school I wanted to attend. There were several rural county schools, a laboratory school affiliated with the university (with a wait list), and two city schools. I chose a city school because I thought there would be fewer cliques and because the school offered German.

Muncie Central High School

Although there is nothing more anxiety-inducing than entering a cafeteria full of teenagers and not knowing a single one, my first day went okay. My mom planned to pick me up after school, but since the school was so big, we didn’t discuss where she would pick me up. As I exited the front doors with hundreds of other students, I saw her frantically running across the lawn, waving her arms, yelling, “Annie!”

Apparently, she thought she would never find me.

Despite the depressing first weeks in Muncie and the embarrassing incident on the first day at Central, my four years in Muncie turned out to be much better than I expected. There have been few times in my life when I have met friendlier people than those in Indiana. Midwesterners are known for their hospitality, and of the places I’ve lived, Muncie topped the charts.

Muncie Central wasn’t a top academic school. In fact, my college admissions counselor told me later that in addition to GPA, SAT scores, class ranking, and class choices, students also received a rating for their high school. My school rated at the bottom. There were some less-than-stellar teachers and unfortunately I didn’t retain much from biology, physics or economics. But there were also some outstanding and caring teachers, advisers, and coaches. And even though I live miles away from my high school friends, when we get together, it feels like nothing has changed.

At the time of course, it did not feel like these were the best years of my life. The years were filled with awkwardness, uncertainly around boys, and a few fights with friends. Some kids rebelled with drinking and drugs. My rebellion involved evangelical Christianity and wearing a wooden cross around my neck. I longed to move on to the wealthy, academically-stimulating, private liberal arts college I’d chosen.

But this place and its people seeped into me.

Muncie Central Girls Tennis 1992

In the early years, my friend’s dad drove us all over the state to watch our school’s semi-famous basketball team (winning their 8^th state championship in ’88). Our German Club took annual trips to Chicago, skiing trips to Michigan and eventually a trip to Europe. My high school tennis experience is one that I still value and use today.

As Mitchell enters ninth-grade, I can only hope he has as good of an experience as I. He will attend a better academic high school than I did, with several AP and dual enrollment (college course) offerings. The proximity of our town to the East Coast is a plus. He is more athletic than I was. He has good friends, some of whom he has known since he was an infant.

But what I want to say to him is this:

Cherish these four years. There will be stress, no doubt, over school, sports, friends, and girls. But there will also be opportunities. Take advantage of all of them and enjoy them to the fullest. Don’t worry too much about where you go to college. You can be successful no matter what if you work hard, be persistent, be kind, and have a positive attitude. Most importantly, these are your people, and they will always be your people. So enjoy them while you have them with you.

When I was pregnant with my firstborn, a friend of my mom’s asked her if she was going to be “one of those crazy grandparents,” who couldn’t stop gushing over her grandchildren.

“No,” my mom said. “I won’t be one of THOSE grandparents.”

Ah, but she was wrong. When Mitchell was born in 2004 my parents lived in Indiana, but my mom came and spent the summer with us.

For the first time in my life, her attention was focused on a child that wasn’t me. Now I know what it feels like to have a sibling, I thought! But this was my child, and my mom was devoted to him.

And thus, the unique grandparent/grandchild relationship between my parents and children began. It only intensified (in a good way) when my parents retired and moved here five years later.

In a sense, it’s completely different from the relationship I had with my grandparents, in that they always lived 100-1000 miles away. But in another sense, it’s not so different, in that my grandparents were devoted to my cousins and me.

My dad’s dad (Grandpa McKenzie) was particularly special to us. To all who knew him, this man was known for his incredible patience and gentleness. He was born in Canada in 1918 and immigrated to the U.S. as a toddler. His father was Scottish and his mother Canadian.  He graduated from Ohio State at a time when it wasn’t so common to attend college. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and fought in Germany during World War II. He worked as an industrial engineer for years and sent three children to college in the 1960s and 70s.

By the time I was born in 1975, my grandpa had already defied death several times. In addition to putting his life on the line in the war, he also had two heart attacks in his late 40s and early 50s.

What I remember him for is the endless time he spent with me.  One of my earliest memories of him includes riding in the backseat of a car driving to Florida while he read old Christmas cards to me and let me comb his greasy gray hair over and over with his small black pocket comb.

He and my grandma retired to Florida when I was seven. My family stayed in the Midwest, but the distance didn’t matter. We traveled to Florida at least once a year, and they visited us. In fourth grade, my parents put me on my first plane ride alone to spend my spring break with them.

As I grew up, my grandparents continued to show up for every milestone in my life no matter how far away they were.  They were there for my high school tennis matches, prom, and high school and college graduations.

In 1996, my grandpa was diagnosed with kidney and colon cancer. He lived through it, long enough to see me and three more of my cousins get married and meet four great-grandchildren.

In 2006, the renal cancer that hit him in the 90s spread to his lungs. Ever the optimist, he entered a clinical trial.  The trial gave him a few more years of life until he started heading downhill again. In early 2008, both he and my grandma were admitted into Hospice.  She passed away in January.

Greg and I flew to Indiana for the funeral, knowing that it would probably be the last time we would see him. The funeral and family gathering were bittersweet as we remembered my grandma and said our goodbyes. Within the next three weeks, three of my cousins and I decided to travel one more time to see our grandpa before he passed. Of the four of us, my visit was last.

A few days before we were scheduled to arrive, my aunt told my grandpa, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, that Mitchell and I were coming that weekend.

“Well, I need to make it until then,” he said.

And he did. He was almost unconscious when we arrived, but when I held his hand and told him we were there, his eyes opened and he looked my way. A few hours later, surrounded by his family, he died.

Almost eight years have passed since then, but his legacy is still with us. I see his endless patience and dedication in my dad, who spends hours with my kids and makes it a priority to attend their sporting events. I see it in my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Unlike him, I do not have endless patience, and I’m not always so laid back. But I think the attribute I admired the most about him was that he appreciated every day and moment with those he loved. Even during the years when he was sick, he never stopped loving life. I am only hopeful I can do the same.

My grandpa, cousin, and I in 1983.