teeth
The Summer of 1985 I was 10 and my mom and I had moved from Port Angeles, WA back to Oregon. It was a weird time, leaving everything and everyone I had known and just leaving. Granted my sister and her Dad had moved down the year before so we were closer to them, yet it was still a strange time. I spent a lot of time on my own that summer, roaming around my grandparents farm, while my mom applied to Colleges and when we knew she got into the University of Oregon she found us housing. I almost had to start 5th grade in Scio (where my grandparents lived) but wound up just starting school a few weeks late in Springfield, which was pretty interesting, everyone was pretty interested in me, being the new kid.
But that’s not what this entry is about, that summer my uncle Jim’s wife Chris was pregnant with their first child. I remember being so excited, this was my first cousin that i’d get to see all the time. (My cousin Justin is a year older but lives in New Mexico) I remember Chris wearing overalls all that summer and she just got bigger and bigger but never enough for the overalls to not fit. We moved to Springfield just before the baby was born. I remember the day for a lot of reasons, partially because I was SO excited and he other part is that we had just gotten an answering machine and it was our first message. I don’t know where we were that night, but it was late and mom and I were excited to see the light on telling us we had a message. It was my uncle Jim calling to tell us that Katherine Hannah Sizemore was born on September 24, 1985. The phone call was long and rambling and that was before the automatic cutoff time so the message just went on, and on, and on.
Yesterday my baby cousin (ok so Rika is really the baby at 17 but Katie was the first so for this story she’s my baby cousin) got married. It was beautiful, she was beautiful and I’m so happy for her. In thinking about writing this post I started thinking about different times with Katie and the one that stands out the most (besides her birth story) is when she was 7. I was 17 and a senior in High School, it was spring break and she came and stayed with us for a day or two (I can’t really remember). We went downtown and hung out at the YMCA (which we did a lot of, between the High School Leaders club we were involved in and the boys we liked that we shouldn’t have been around) and rode the bus back and forth. On one of those bus trips there was a guy, who like Katie at 7, had no front teeth. My bestfriend and I teased her and said that he was her “boyfriend”. I’d see all over town and and tease her when I’d see her again about seeing her boyfriend, up until I moved from Salem 5 years ago. Of course the difference of telling someone at 7 that you’ve seen their toothless boyfriend and teasing your 18 year old cousin is different. Luckily he wasn’t the man that she married (not that he’s probably not a nice guy, but I think he might have been homeless and a little “special”) the man she did marry has all his teeth and has a pretty good sense of humor.
It’s strange to think that she’s now a Reid and not a Sizemore and that shes MARRIED. It didn’t really hit me till the ceremony thinking that she’s only 23! That seems so young to be married (I was married at 20/21 so I know how young it is). I’m happy for her, she’s starting a new chapter to her life and it’s going to be full of ups and downs and new experiences. I’m happy for her and I wish her nothing but love and happiness.
I'm not the one in White...
