Casey's and Sloane's Blog
 On March 10th we had the time of our lives.
Again.
For the 10th year in a row.
The Brookside St. Patrick’s Warm-Up Parade is a Kansas City tradition that is equal in its grandness to the main parade held downtown every March 17th. Over 125 entries were in this year’s parade, and the crowds on every block were huge. The weather was amazing, and small business was shining throughout the parade. Another example of the small businesses in and around Brookside giving it their all…strutting their stuff and making magic for children and families.
One of our greatest fears as a small business in a global economy is that events like this parade will cease to exist if small business falters. Who will walk in parades showing off a 1964 Ford F100 pickup? Who will hand out over 100 pounds of candy? Who will hoot and holler and respond to every “shout out” from the crowd?
 We saw the most amazing floats this year – dogs in wagons, rainbows over pots of gold, giant lawnmowers and shopping carts. A motorized potato. People on stilts. The list is endless and wonderful. Target didn’t have a float, Walmart didn’t have a float. PetSmart didn’t have a float. But Noah’s Ark did. And The Roasterie, and Cosentino’s.
The St. Pat’s Parade in Brookside was another reminder for us of why we work so hard to keep the neighborhood cultures alive. Because we love what we do, and we don’t want small parades in great neighborhoods to go away.
Please continue to shop with small businesses. You make pots of gold appear in all the right places and for all the right reasons.
Last night we said goodbye to sweet Emma. She passed peacefully surrounded by family with her head on my lap and my daughter’s arms wrapped around her. The room was full of our loving family. I am heartbroken. So is my daughter.
I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I was trying to draft this blog. As Emma’s mom, I took on the responsibility of raising her, caring for her, loving her, and keeping my promise to let her die with dignity and without pain. But having the responsibility of sharing her passing with the rest of the world weighs very, very heavy on me. She started as my dog, but in the end she belonged to everyone. She worked at STUFF for 11 years. She touched thousands of lives. She never missed a Brookside St. Pat’s parade, including the one last Saturday. She went to work with me – by choice – every day I went to work. She was always walking the block and greeting people. She was truly everyone’s dog.
I finally fell asleep last night without a draft in my head. Today we started the process of telling others of her passing. After many calls, my daughter was ready to tell her father. I asked if she wanted to call, but she said no. She wanted to write her own note and send it by text message. When she was done, she had written the words for which I had been searching.
“Emma passed away last night. The family said goodbye. I am heartbroken. But yesterday…we went to the park. Emma came with us. There will be no barks for a long time…well at least not in this house. No big fluffy giant to welcome people to STUFF. She will be missed.” – Sawyer
Here is short photo celebration of Emma’s life.
 Emma last Saturday on parade day. 
One for the road…
 Emma's first trip with our family in 2001.
As part of our spring break and in honor of the lovely spring weather we have in Kansas City right now, my daughter and I planted a handful of seeds.
We were on an outing to get a gasket for our stove – which they didn’t have – and found ourselves shopping the spring seed displays. I picked up three packets. She picked up two.
When it was time to check out, she said she wanted to buy the two packets she picked with her own spring break money.
While driving home, I explained that the seeds would grow perennial plants and explained what that meant. Her response was, “That is amazing. I bought more than one plant that will come back every year for only two dollars and thirty seven cents. Now, that was a good way to spend my money.”
I think we planted more than a handful of seeds.
In this world of “big brother” advertising, where Google tracks your searches, Facebook targets what ads you see and every click you make is sold to a marketer somewhere in the world, I had almost forgotten about targeted snail mail. In my former career I trained organizations on the importance of targeted mailings and phone calls.
When this catalog arrived at my home my first thought was “Wow, how did they do that?” My daughter and I share our home with a Bernese Mountain Dog and a orange tabby kitten.
I am sure the technology is already available. I am sure the day when we start receiving snail mail pieces with photos that are selected specifically for each of us is just right around the corner. Just think if the front of each catalog was printed with you, your pet, your car, your sofa, etc on the front. It has already happened to me.
 - Emma & Google ?
I was cleaning out a drawer in my desk at home recently and I came across this receipt.
On my birthday in 2009 my daughter asked if she could take me to lunch. I, of course, said yes. (Anytime a 5 year old asks you to lunch, you go.) I picked Sol Cantina, because it was a warm sunny day, they have fantastic fish tacos and you can sit outside under festive umbrellas that make you feel like you are on vacation.
It was a delightful birthday lunch. A close friend joined us and we sat talking, laughing, munching and even sipped a margarita or two.
At the end of our meal the check arrived. My daughter picked it up, checked it (very much like her mother usually does), turned to me and said, “Mom, can I borrow the credit card?”.
She presented the credit card to the waiter. And, when the check booklet arrived back, she opened it, signed the check and handed the card back to me without another word.
I will always remember this special day. It hung heavy with glimpses into the future. My daughter becoming her own woman with her own money, her own credit card, her own plans and her own vision for a day.
I am so glad I kept this little scrap of thermal paper. And, I am so glad I came across it before it was completely faded. It brought me unexpected joy. Always a welcome gift.
Note: I did tip the server on my way out.
 This image inspires me. I love these kinds of spaces and idea boards. But, I must admit I can’t help but ask…who has to dust all that?
 Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – Leonardo Da Vinci
This quote is on my bulletin board above my desk. I read it almost every day. On a trip to Atlanta recently, I was finally reading my magazines from November. I saw this ad and immediately thought of the quote.
This photo reminds me of Richard Avedon’s work. It is simply classic.
I enjoy language. Word play is fun. So, when I recently read the term “brunch-block” in an email, I cracked up. The sender was being literal. She was proposing to plan a brunch for a good friend and she discovered that a brunch was already being planned. She then stated that she hadn’t meant to “brunch-block” the host.
I am stealing this term. I will be using it. And, every time I do, it will make me happy.
PS…Since we are talking about brunch, I thought I would share one of my favorite brunch spots.
When my darling boy was a little over 2 years old, I drove the wrong way down one way streets and sped through red lights after looking both ways. Or maybe my husband did that. Can’t remember exactly who was behind the wheel because I may have been freaking out. We got there and parked in under 8 minutes.
My husband and I escorted our young son into Children’s Mercy Hospital way after midnight all those years ago on feet that never touched the floor. A mere few minutes before that, we had been sleeping in our bed when the sound of troubled breathing from the baby’s room woke us both with a start. We knew something was wrong, and it really sounded like he had swallowed something and it was stuck. Stuck right beyond where we could dig it out with cupped fingers. We know, because we tried.
We had been out earlier that night. The sweet boy had been with his favorite sitter in our home. We had houseguests – my very pregnant best friend and her husband were sleeping over while their floors were being refinished a few blocks away. They were asleep as well.
But not for long. When a wheezing sound from another human hits you that hard, you have trouble breathing yourself. I caught my breath enough to wake our guests, call the babysitter, ask a few questions, and dress us all for quality time in the emergency room.
I can still see my friend Cathy – out to there with baby #1 – in silhouette at the top of my stairs telling me to call her. She had the same look of fear in her eyes that I did.
We flew into the hospital, and everyone could hear that something was wrong. Those geniuses knew what it was from his first exhalation in their presence. They are that good. I believe we heard the word “spasmodic croup” before the next inhalation. We answered 900 questions, filed a gazillion forms, and paid a co-pay with a credit card in the exam room. And then our friend Scott walked in the room.
 Scott and our son on Valentine's Day this year. How he knew we were there I will never know. He is a respiratory therapist at Children’s Mercy, and he walked into the room in the heat of it all. He was as cool, calm and collected as the other staff. They all seem to know each other at that particular hospital, and they all seem to love their jobs. It is palpable when you meet any of them – in or out of the hospital.
When it was ascertained that there already was a respiratory therapist in the room for our son and Scott was asked why was he there, he simply stated, in true Scott fashion, “I’m not here for him. I’m here for her,” and he swiftly pointed to me.
He made the whole room smile with that line. He made me laugh hard enough to have oxygen reach the bottom of my lungs – at the exact moment our son ceased to struggle due to the vapors coming at him from a crazy machine. He made the whole room relax.
And then he was gone. Back to the children that needed him. He hugged my husband and me, patted our son on the back, and left.
We spent a few more hours at the hospital, and we never laid eyes on Scott again that night. We went home and slept well. Our son never had another episode in infanthood. Or ever.
Lucky us. For having friends who know exactly when they are needed, and for having a son who knows to just have his croup “spasmodically” and not every day.
Recently a friend posted a photo to Facebook that shook me a little bit. My mind was racing all over the place with memories of my own life. Of comments made in the past by strangers and friends. Then I let my mind go silent.
 In the spring of 2008, my last grandparent passed away – My Dad’s mom. I hold firmly to my belief that I am a better person having had grandparents who loved me and were alive well into my 30′s and 40′s. Mostly, I am a better person for having had a hand in caring directly for my grandma during her last year.
When her health dictated that it was time for her to leave her Mid-Missouri home and move to Kansas City to be nearer to her family, she embraced it whole-heartedly. Her statement was, “I’ve always wanted to live in the big city!” The day she spoke those words to me, I wrote them down so that I wouldn’t forget that adventure comes at every age.
My father found a place for her to live in south Kansas City that was very near her primary care doctor, but I think he knew that the best medicine for her was to be super close to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Finally, after all the years of driving to Mid-Missouri to see any of my grandparents, I had one living less that 4 miles from my home. I was a little bit excited.
I tried to visit her two times a week, but some weeks found me there only once. Those weeks were hard for me, because I have inherited from both of my grandmothers a need to not be “cooped up” and to “get out for a little while,” to paraphrase them both. I was always afraid that, when I was unable to visit, she would suffer from this virus we all shared. I called her every day, and we spoke of much. She let loose with a few thoughts she’d been harboring for years, and those utterances left me speechless several times. Deep issues regarding her life with my grandfather and, therefore, my father. I was glad she released them, and, two times in particular when I didn’t respond quickly, she asked if I was OK and I told her I just needed a little time to think about what she said. She replied, “I’ve got time.”
What was amazing to me about my grandma’s last year was that many of my friends and aquaintances were stunned that I would take my son with me to care for his great grandmother. I found no shame in having him help me with her hair, putting away her small amount of groceries, cleaning her bathroom, lotioning her legs, and, on one occasion, trimming her toenails. One person admonished me with this line: “He doesn’t need to see all that.”
Yes, he did. We all do. The lessons that are learned at the end of life are as great as the lessons I learned at the beginning of my son’s life.
He never saw her naked. He never cleaned up the truly messy parts of her bathroom. He sat on the edge of her chair and charmed her with stories of basketball and art class and his younger cousin. He told her about the trials and tribulations of the 4th and then 5th grades. He read her mail to her and described every detail of the art on the greeting cards, because the finer parts were lost to her macular degeneration. He helped her decorate her door and bedside table for the passing seasons and always was a guiding force on how the magnets and photos were displayed on her tiny under-the-cabinet refrigerator.
I was not prepared for the fact that so many people spoke to me about not understanding why I did all this. It was more people than those who could easily see why this was so important to me. And why it was important to have my son see the glory of living past 85.
A series of strokes dictated when the time came for her to enter the hospital and never leave. My son only visited her in the hospital once. It was early in the episodes, and she was cognitive and aware, smiling and laughing. She was still his “Gramma Ginny”. He got right up into the bed with her, and her eyes just blazed. I remember thinking he was so comfortable in a place that makes most people ultra-nervous and stiff.
I am amazed at how much he remembers from this year we had with her in The Big City. We showed her a good time, given all the limitations. We made a little magic.
p.s. I want to thank my friend Shelly DeMotte Kramer for letting me share her photo of her daughter with her father-in-law. You can see the second pair of hands to the left in the photo. Shelly has twin girls, and the human caring they share in this photo is amazing. Shelly and her family laid him to rest today.
p.p.s Casey wrote an amazing blog in 2008 about my grandmother. Find it here.
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