Tyler Troyer - American Hero, Beloved Nephew

This morning at 7:30 I was privileged to be with all of Tyler’s parents, brothers and sisters, along with many aunts, uncles, cousins, other relatives, school personnel, and friends gathered around the flag pole at West Albany High for a flag-lowering ceremony in his honor. Afterward we went to Memorial Middle School office (where I work). A teacher there had made cross wreaths, one for Dave & Sandi, one for Terri & Michael, and one for my family. They presented them to us, as well as a patriotic wreath to take to the funeral home. Tyler didn’t attend Memorial but Brittany and Michael did and are well-loved by all of us there. The staff at West Albany High School and Memorial Middle School have been so wonderful in caring for all of us in Tyler’s family, especially Michael and Brittany. Times like this bring out the best in people.

Obviously Tyler has been constantly in my thoughts since that horrible phone call I received from Dave on Saturday telling me that he had lost his life in Iraq. So many memories of the busy little boy Tyler. He started walking well before his first birthday, and soon no door knob was too high for him to reach up and open! He needed to explore everything around him at an amazing speed!

After Tyler’s parents divorced and his dad moved to Portland, we didn’t get to see Tyler and Brittany as often as we used to. We were delighted when they moved in next door to us with their mom and step-dad about a year after we came to live in Tangent, probably in 1998. Soon there was a pack of boys skating in the neighborhood, with Tyler and his cousin Craig in the middle of it. Tyler was the lone roller blader among the skateboarders. His skills were greatly admired by all and videotaped often by his cousin Eric, the non-skater. Many times I stepped out my front door and gasped in terror as I watched Tyler on his blades take a flying leap off a homemade ramp and sail over the four mailboxes across the street, or worse yet, fly over a row of prone boys lined up in the street. Talk about trust! He would land safely and circle around with a big grin, to the cheers of his buddies. He could even do flips in mid-air. The boy knew no fear.

At a Thanksgiving service at church when Craig was in sixth grade, we were given an opportunity to share what we were thankful for. Craig was sitting with friends in the second row, and he stood up and began to talk about his cousin Tyler. We began to grow restless as he talked on and on about Tyler, but finally he got to the point. He was happy that Tyler had come on a middle school youth trip to Seattle. They got to see a Mariners game and a Passion Play. After the Passion Play, Tyler asked Jesus to be his Savior, and that was what Craig was most thankful for that year.

We always had a house rule that no friends could be here if parents weren’t home. The boys got off the bus around 3:00, and I got off work at 4:00. They frequently tried to convince me that Tyler should be an exception to that rule. I held firm that even Tyler shouldn’t be over until I got there. One day I came home to a very large hole in the wall at the bottom of the stairs, about three feet tall and probably two feet wide. Craig said he had been running full speed down the steps with his backpack on, tripped and felled about halfway down and crashed into the wall. Will didn’t think the story rang very true, but Craig stuck with it. Will patched the hole with about one-inch thick plywood, declaring that no one would ever break through it again. He did a good job, but the texturing never quite blended in, so I have an enormous framed poster covering it up. Recently, Craig must have decided the statute of limitations had expired and it was safe to tell us the true story. Tyler was visiting after school that day and both boys were jumping from the top of the stairway to the bottom, where they had a pile of pillows. They jumped successfully several times before Tyler leaped a little too far and crashed through the wall! Knowing Tyler, he probably tried to do a flip on the way down! Nobody wanted to get in trouble for breaking the "no visiting" rule, so they concocted the phony story. Boys, boys, boys.....

When Tyler and his fiance Megan visited last March, I was working on a family history scrapbook for Brittany’s graduation and had become aware of how special were the few pictures I had of myself with my aunts and uncles. So I made sure I had a picture taken of Will and I with Tyler and Megan when they came for dinner. I was so impressed with the way Tyler made an effort to see so many family members when he was home, even family who hadn’t stayed close. Over the past few years when I spent time with Tyler, I thought and commented so often what a wonderful young man he grew up to be. I have been sending my blog postings to him and hope he got a few smiles out of them.

Tyler was a child of God, and I have no doubt he did a lot of praying the last days of his life as he was on a battlefield. We will never understand why he had to leave us so soon, and the pain of our loss is almost unbearable. I can imagine him now in the Extreme Thrills section of heaven, with his grandmothers (who both went to heaven before his birth) watching and gasping with delight at the amazing heights he can reach and the mid-air flips he can do on his new heavenly roller blades.

Tyler, I am honored to be your aunt. It is also an honor to be called Aunt LeAnn by your sister Brittany, your brothers Michael and Jeremy, your sister McKenna, and your brother Jeremiah. I have always loved all of you and always will. Thank you for making this world a better place for all of us.

Teenagers

Sometimes parenting teenagers can be pretty grim and dreary when you're dealing with the fall out from bad decisions they make. The past couple of weeks have been hard, but we are determined not to let it get us down. I will find joy in every small step toward maturity and moments of levity that come along.

Eric was telling us that some girls at McDonalds were talking about how they have their closets organized by clothing's color. He proudly shared with them that he has just started actually hanging up clothes in his closet instead of cramming them all into drawers. Wonderful growth.

I always have confidence that Nick knows what he is talking about. He wanted to visit Batteries Plus on the way home from school yesterday to check out a battery for his laptop. After we clarified that he could not beg or borrow any money from me if he was short, I agreed to stop by. He said it was over by the skatepark in a yellow building. Well, the Battery Exchange is in a yellow building there but after driving around a bit there was no sign of Batteries Plus. He called his father who checked on line for a location. Will asked how much gas we had in the car. He informed Nick there was one in Atlanta. Today Nick asked around and learned that they are in Salem or Eugene, not Albany. He was just sure he had seen a commercial for it in Albany. Oh well.

On our way home as we reached the top of the overpass the sky was gorgeous with glowing clouds as the sun began to set. I exclaimed, "Look at the sky!" Nick looked around and asked, "What guy?" "Huh?" I say. "You said look at this guy," he said. Communication is not easy.

Nick often gets to see and hear more than he wants in the office after school. Yesterday a staff member surreptiously dropped off a bra at my desk after finding it on the hall floor. I put it in the safe, next to a backpack containing Nick's laptop. After school a bunch of teachers are in the office and Helen tells them, "Guess what fell out of Nick's backpack in the safe." She opens the safe and shows them. Nick protested, "I already told you, it's not even my size!" I said, "Someone must have booby trapped his backpack!" Very sophisticated humor in school offices. No one has come to the office yet to ask if we've found a lost bra. We don't think it would be appropriate to put it out on the lost and found table so we may be stuck with it and it's way too tiny for any adult.

Dawn and Faith, thanks for all your comments. It is really fun hearing from you. Faith, I'm waiting for a new posting on your blog!

Aunt Susie Visits

Our children have one aunt on their father’s side. She loaded her two Australian Shepherds in her motor home and drove over from Boise to visit us last week. We enjoyed hearing her version of some of the family legends. When she tells the story of how she broke her arm when she was a mere toddler as a result of her big brother Will (also a toddler because they’re less than a year apart) pushing her down the stairs, she says he gave her a big kiss and then a shove. When Will tells it, he says she gave him a big kiss so he shoved her. Of course, neither of them actually remember the event, they only know it happened because their mother told them. This time the boys were a bit disappointed with a new detail - it was actually only one stair!

We were sitting at the table looking at the back yard when she innocently questioned, "How did you get that boat in your back yard?" (It’s discreetly stored along the fence at the side of the yard and it was not easy to get it there. Some of us are not real pleased with its’ location.) She immediately received unhappy reactions from three family members and decided it was a subject best not discussed. (Does anyone want to take an old drift boat off our hands and out of our yard?) A bit later she asked why we didn’t park any of our cars in the garage. Another sore subject. Let’s not even talk about the junk in the garage. We decided perhaps we should make and post a list of topics that a guest should not mention in order to avoid these awkward conversation killers that are sure to make at least one person in the family grumpy. Speaking of grumpy, please don’t ever mention to a certain person in the house that he appears grumpy. He’s not grumpy; none of us are ever grumpy in this house. It is just not allowed. Cute and fun to be with is our mantra!

We took a drive on Saturday hoping to see a herd of elk that Will had spotted earlier in the week. We didn’t see any elk but Waterloo park was a lovely site for group photo. We also stopped by Radio Shack in Lebanon so that Will and Nick could prove a point to Sue that Radio Shack guys never know what they are talking about. We were not disappointed, the first guy tried to sell me the wrong cable. We purchased an inexpensive DVD player so that we would no longer need to be at the mercy of the kid who knows how to hook up and operate the Playstation 2. Sue talks about working in a cubicle so Eric thought we needed to watch Office Space with her. The cheap DVD player worked just fine.

A Treasured Quilt

I have very few prized possessions, but this quilt is destined to become one. It was sewed together by my dad a couple of years ago and it had a long rest on my closet shelf. About a month ago Mom offered to get it quilted for me. I hastened down there! She put the quilt in on a Thursday, and by Saturday just two weeks later, it was ready for me to come down and put the last three inches of stitches in! She is an amazing quilter, as is my Aunt Grace, who came to visit from Nebraska just in time to help with this project. It is hard to believe that Aunt Grace recently celebrated her 80th birthday. I can only hope to be that cute-and-fun-to-be-with when I am her age! I thank them as well as my sisters-in-law, sisters and nieces who came with and without me to do some stitching. It is truly a thing of beauty and I will treasure it always. The picture doesn't do justice to the vibrant colors and quilted designs. I'll be happy to show it to you in person when you come to visit after it's all done!

The first time I went down, I remembered to bring my reading glasses. The second Saturday, I forgot them. I am challenged enough already at stitching, and if I couldn’t see what I was doing – yikes. So I called my loving husband and son, who were shopping in Albany and soon to come to Brownsville, requesting that they bring me some glasses from the Dollar Store. They did, and boy, what a beautiful pair of specks. I’ve had some ugly glasses in my 40-some years of wearing them, but I think these ranked right there at the top of extreme dorkiness! For some reason I felt obligated to explain to everyone who stopped by during quilting that the unbecoming black glasses perched on my nose weren’t really my normal glasses. But if you’re ever quilting down there and you need some glasses, I have them hidden behind a framed picture on a bookshelf in the sewing room. Help yourself, they work great!