Dear Lyla,
Spring break starts at the end of this week and my students can hardly contain their excitement; it has been a long winter and we both need a break from each other. Many of my students are going on service trips or vacationing somewhere warm. When I was an undergraduate spring break meant one thing, an opportunity to get in a 40 hour work week! To me breaks were a time to replenish my savings account so that I could make my car payment and have spending money. I never regretted not taking a spring break because I didn’t know what I was missing and having a car was motivation enough for me to not mourn the opportunity. It wasn’t until I was almost at the end of my PhD that I was invited to go on spring break. Daddy and I were living in Columbia, MO while I went to Mizzou; a year or two before I graduated Bumpa realized just how close that was to a variety of civil war battlefields and Eureka Springs. Bumpa proposed that we spend my spring break together touring the Ozarks. I did not get to spend a lot of quality time by myself with Bumpa while growing up since he worked a great deal and most of our time together focused on work. While possessing wonderful qualities; patience with his children was not one that Bumpa could claim. It was not until I reached adulthood that he and I began to understand each other and so I was grateful for some quality time with my dad. We had a wonderful week as we were not rushed as our only constraint was how tired our bodies got before we called it a day. We spent hours at civil war battlefields and Bumpa was lucky enough to stumble upon a group of men reenacting a battle; I knew that we would not depart anytime soon. After the reenactment Bumpa spent hours talking to the gentlemen, inspecting their weapons and discussing the authenticity of their clothing. While I have a healthy respect for history, this is not the period that intrigues me the most; however, dutifully I sat through these musings as it brought joy to my dad. We also spent time in Eureka Springs where we marveled at the statue of Christ, wondered at a tree decorated with running shoes and had the most delicious barbecue at the seediest joint I have ever been in to date. Bumpa and I stayed up late playing cards and talking politics. I learned more about my dad in that one week that I had my entire life prior to that trip. I discovered that he and I had similar passions and personality traits and that we were capable of communicating with love and respect. It has been fifteen years since Bumpa and I went on that trip together and the sights, sounds and smells that we encountered are as fresh as if we had traveled just yesterday. I treasure that time I had with my dad as our relationship had not always been as solid as I would have liked and in my younger days we often tread on rocky ground. Those days that I spent with Bumpa are even more precious as less than a year later he would go to heaven. The lesson for both of us Little One is that sometimes you just need to take a break and hang out with the ones you love, work will always be waiting but we never know how long we will have each other. I look forward to all of the possibilities that lie ahead for you, Daddy and me; spring break here we come!
Letters To Lyla 