I like it when you're here

James enjoyed celebrating Easter by joining the parade in Manhattan every year.  It is less of a parade and more of a stroll among friends wearing funny hats.  We have been taking Imogen since she was a baby, usually riding the subway into town after a leisurely search for all the eggs left by the bunny in the house.

This morning we took a car to the hospital with James's brother Chris and his pregnant wife, Karen.  Imogen patiently passed time in the waiting room while we visited James.  He seemed pretty deep into his snooze since we arrived in the afternoon as opposed to the morning when he's brighter.  I plugged in some music and we attempted to rise James from his slumber.  I did the usual routine of loudly saying his name and then, I told him that Chris and Karen were there to see him.

He did finally open his eyes and they were much brighter and clearer today.  Chris said, "Hey Jim" standing on the "bad boob" side of the bed. It seemed as if James was struggling a bit to see Chris so we switched sides. With Karen and her belly in straight sight lines for James, his eyes opened wide.  Oh, yes, that's right--Karen is pregnant with a boy!  My nephew!  You could see James recognize them and Karen placed James's hand on her belly. I could not think of a more tender image for this Easter Sunday.

One of the memorable, what I like to think of as old-school Sheehan family experiences, I shared with the entire extended family (grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousins) was Easter dinner at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.  James's grandmother wore her favorite posh outfit which was a pant suit made out of exquisite patterned silk and the family regaled around a large table with stories about the children, when they were young, and were scolded for playing in the sand traps on the club's golf course. We ate traditional sliced ham, mustard on the side, steamed asparagus, and scalloped potatoes.  I was told how warm and funny James's grandfather had been and how he was missed. I was too young to drink but I remember toasting with Grandma Sheehan saying "Here's to you!"

James is very sentimental and I know his heart is filled with these childhood memories, especially around the holidays. After his grandmother passed away, James helped to prepare her San Francisco house for sale by hand painting the floors to refinish them. We spent several inspired days up at the house on Francisco Street, drifting off to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags to the lonely sound of the fog horn and waking to sea gull cries. I was running long distance back then and would take a morning run down the hill to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and back while James worked. It was glorious--to see the white caps on the bay and the wind pushing the fog off to the open pacific ocean.  James was able to say a final goodbye to his grandmother and his childhood in that house over that short week or so. We stood up on the roof and inhaled deeply to remember it all forever. Sometimes, in old houses in Brooklyn, James will turn to me and say, "Smells like Grandma's house," and I am able to confirm, "Yes, yes it does, right there on the entrance stairs on the first floor."

Hearing Chris's voice and knowing that there is another generation waiting to be born is the perfect antidote to the melancholic hold this quiet day has over James, Imogen and me.

The flowers are blooming on the trees outside the hospital and I hope to take a photo for Imogen soon so that she may make a painting for her father of the spring that insists on becoming.