My Michigan

Dear Ty,

First of all, Merry Christmas!  We are in the middle of your four Christmases right now, and we're having so much fun watching your eyes light up with each new discovery.  We'll have to document that all for you soon (hint, hint Daddy).

For now, I want to tell you about something else.  We'll be heading back to Michigan tomorrow to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa.  You'll have lots of fun with all the relatives, sledding adventures, more presents, and all the good times you can handle (which we'll have to tell you all about on here when we get back).  Tomorrow, we will also be taking you to THE University of Michigan campus for the first time to see your first basketball game at Crisler Arena.  It is with great pride that we take you back to our campus.

Our Michigan is a very special place to us, and my Michigan is very near and dear to my heart.  Now that we live in Missouri (I think we'll still be here by the time you read this...?), this may not be easy for everyone you know to understand.  You'll try to explain, but you'll realize that you just aren't able to do it justice.  I feel the same way, but I'd still like to tell you about my Michigan.  Maybe someday as you read this, you'll find yourself nodding your head along with me as your own special memories play in your head.

My Michigan is, of course, football Saturdays.  It has been this way for as long as I can remember.  It is tailgates with family, walks across campus, shouts and clap clap claps from Dad and Mom with her eyes closed, cheers at the perfect parking spot and the perfect catch, chants of "It's great. To be. A Michigan Wolverine!" on the way back to more tailgates, and so many other kinds of happy.  It's perfect sunny days and terribly rainy days and even miserable snowy days.  It's where we have our reunions with family and friends from all times of life and our "holy day of obligation".  I hope that one day, sooner rather than later, I can show you how a just right football Saturday is done.

To say that my Michigan is only football Saturdays in the fall would be a gross, gross understatement, however.  It is much, much more.  It's winter sledding in The Arb, spring day trips to the Hands On Museum and spring afternoons lounging on the patio of Dominick's.  It's hot summer Art Fair days sampling foods I've never heard of before and summer nights watching Piston's games before marching down Packard St.

My Michigan is Mitch's dollar pitchers Mondays, Skeeps Thursdays, and Rick's Saturdays.  It's church on Sundays at Saint Mary's praisin' Jesus, where Aunt Manda and I compete to see who can find the hymn in the least number of flips, where I hold hands to "Our Father" with my mother and father, and where Cousin Lu Lu and I raise our well-intentioned voices to the Lord.  It's dinner after church, sitting at Buffalo Wild Wings, telling Grandma and Grandpa that I am... ahem... seeing someone.

My Michigan is your dad.  Back to that Skeeps Thursday.  And Bell's Carry Out Specials with jalapeno poppers.  And running around campus together without a care in the world.  And back to that Rick's Saturday.  And our first "date" at Damon's.   And our graduation together in the Big House, winking across the stadium behind bottles of champagne.  And that house on Arch St. where I knew he liked me and the house on Arbor St. where he told me he loved me.  Oh, the house on Arbor St.

My Michigan is State St. and Monroe St. and Arbor St., the places I called home when I had to leave mine.  These are the places where I put myself together piece by piece and had my heart broken.  These are the places where I made many of the friends that are your honorary Aunties today, my friend soul mates.  These are the places where I made my big mistakes, learned my big lessons, and felt my big triumphs.  These are the places where I wrote outstanding (and some not so outstanding... sorry, Mom and Dad) papers and developed my true passion for writing, where I giggled and hiccuped through Power Hours, where I had sing-a-longs to terrible songs, where I cooked "family" dinners with my new families, where I started parades (this really happened, remind me to tell you that story), where I danced Irish jigs, where we parked cars to pay for paper towels and kegs, where... well, I could go on and on.  I can't give away all my best college stories in one shot.  It's not just a college, though, either.

My Michigan became my Michigan before I was ever even born.  This is where it gets tricky for some.  My Michigan became mine when Grandpa Eugene, your great grandpa, was the first in his family to go to college and when my dad, your Grandpa Terry, was the first in his family to do the same.  I'm not sure if they chose Michigan or if Michigan chose them.  I'd like to think it's a little of both.  So many branches of our family tree can be traced back to these decisions, these two men who wanted more and got it in the form of degrees and amazing women.  Your grandma and grandpa met and fell in love there.  Enter Amanda.  Uncle Jason's Michigan hat caught Amanda's eye, and before she knew it, she was dancing her first dance as a married woman at the Michigan Union.  Mommy and Daddy met and fell in love there.  Enter Bubba.  There's also Great Aunt Peach and Uncle Tom, Great Uncle Gene, Great Uncle Frank, Cousin Lauren, and all those crazy guys and girls Mom and Dad bring around every now and then that begin with stories of "Remember when..." and end in warm, fuzzy smiles.

My Michigan is so many memories.  There was that time when Dad lifted Manda and I up and ran around the room shouting "Remember this night for the rest of your life!"  We do.  There was that trip to California where we cheered our team onto a Rose Bowl victory and a National Championship and where Grandma and Grandpa had smiles that you probably could have seen even through their toes.  There was the first time we spun the big cube and the last class in Angell Hall.  There was the time when we "had lunch" with Brian Griese and the time when I wrote creatively with Steve Breaston.  There were those Fridays and summers at Thano's where I was an honorary Greek.  There was the time Grandma and Grandpa took my friends to Blimpie Burger, let them order wrong, and giggled behind them.  There were all those "Big as a House" burger eating Law and Order: SVU marathons and Charley's iced teas with the Arbor girls; there was Emma, Penelope, the Hankumas miracle, and Tequila Tuesdays with the Monroe girls.  There was making NOISE, Rod's colliders (high school cobblestones), and writing bad poetry with Abiman.  There was getting a farmer's tan in the Diag and getting my learning on in the Ugli.  There was the hunt for the Ultimate Chach, Dinersty, and Beaner's Wieners (hot dogs, Bubba) with Aunt Manda.  And again, there were all those lovely moments that could be set to a cheesy romantic movie montage with your Dad (not including, by the way, the time he ate our bill at the Brown Jug).

I hope that someday my Michigan will become yours, too.  Does that mean I hope you go to school there?  Sure, I would absolutely love that.  My goal is for you to experience the happy that I had and continue to have because of my Michigan (I know that happy there should really be happiness, but I like it better this way).  Does it mean that I will force you to go there or prevent you from making another choice, your own choice?  Nope, not at all.  When I was completing my college applications, I stalled for a bit.  Grandma and Grandpa sat me down and asked if it was because I had doubts, if there was somewhere else I'd rather go.  They explained to me that as much as they would love for me to have the kind of experience they had, it was up to me to choose my own.  The 1% doubt I had vanished after that conversation, when I realized that I had been making my own choice all along.  I want the same for you, Ty.  Find your happy wherever you can.  I think the world could use a lot more happy, and that's my biggest hope for you, whether it's your own Michigan kind of happy or something else.  We want to raise you with that Michigan kind of happy that we found for ourselves and send you out into the world, Ann Arbor or otherwise, with it in your heart.        

I can't wait to take you back to campus tomorrow to add pages and pages of wonderful to my Michigan.  Get ready to go blue!

Love you,

Michigan Momma    

Y.E.S.

Dear Ty,

Seven years ago, I was living across the country from Daddy.  He was in Seattle, and I was in Parma.  I missed him terribly.

Seven years ago, I called Daddy crying and told him I was going to buy a plane ticket to see him.  He told me that if I bought a plane ticket, I would miss him because he had planned on coming home to surprise me. I was elated.  He told me not to be disappointed, though, if it was just a normal visit.  I knew what he meant.  The visit was enough.

Seven years ago, everyone else thought I was surprised to see him on the Friday night at Outback when I walked in to find him sitting with my parents.  I wasn't, but that didn't make it any less wonderful.

Seven years ago, I woke up on a Saturday morning to spend a glorious day with Daddy making Christmas cookies, singing, dancing, laughing, and being silly.  My heart was so happy.

Seven years ago, Daddy took me to dinner at my favorite restaurant, the English Inn.  We had great dinner, great conversation, and great love.

Seven years ago, your Daddy asked me to walk out back with him to look at the garden area.  I thought he was nuts.  It was freezing, and I was in heels carrying a box of leftovers.  No, I did not want to walk in the snow.  What was there to see?  A bunch of snow?  I went anyway.

Seven years ago today, your Dad asked me the most important question of my life.  Well, we think he did.  It was all such a blur that neither one of us really know what happened, and presumably I said yes.  Before we knew it, we were at home making phone calls and drinking corky wine (that's a whole other story) with Grandma and Grandpa.

Seven years ago today set me on my way to a life that far exceeds my big dreams and makes me believe I can realize even bigger ones.  I say yes to your Dad every day and make a choice to be best buds forever and yes to you and yes to everything that comes along with this crazy wonderful life of ours.

Seven years ago today, Daddy liked it and put a ring on it.  Seven years later, I still thank God for that every day.

Love you,

Mom