The Office, Today, Fiesta ware

I was up at the OFFICE yesterday. I had decided I needed to clean out "Bruce's corner". All of the years he has been in the office, it has always been his territory. My job was to just stop in as the good wife and visit, schmooze with customers if they were in there and then leave. Many times it was common for Bruce to call me up around 11:45 and ask if I wanted to meet him and Ty for lunch at the local bar -Bo's and Mine. They would walk down the street from the office, and I would drive to the bar. The waitresses knew what Bruce liked and many times would bring his pepsi before asking him. So back to the office... instead of him being behind his desk, it is now our young son, Lance. Looking at all of Bruce's nooks and stuff, I decided Lance needed to begin to claim this space. Armed with cleaning supplies, garbage bags and my vacumn cleaner I arrived yesterday to do some true office cleaning. I started in all of the areas except Bruce's desk, getting used to the feel of picking up stuff that reminded me of him. His Hole in One trophy from Missouri Valley, along with the yellowed newspaper clipping framed by me many years ago were there. The many photos of his Golf Tournaments. He was most proud of playing with Karn Bye, the Olympic Gold medalist in women's hockey from here in town. The many cups of pens/pencils/paperclips. Then there are the stacks of notepads from all of the insurance companies/glass companies, etc.. And then, the notes in his handwriting..little sticky notes everywhere with pieces of information he needed to know, or not know anymore - but just there. There was the M&M Slot machine I had gotten him in L.V. And, the "Hawkeye" Yellow and Gold M&M's that are at least 5 years old in another candy jar. There was the HuGE picture of me in my Red Boa Glamour shot. I said, "I am taking that down - and the boys chimed in together, "Yes, mom- Please!" As Lance was helping me dig out of a corner of his desk, he pulled out the silver/definitely 1970's vintage beer stein I had gotten him. It is made out of a heavy stainless steel and has rather a horn shaped style to it with a curved handle. He held onto it and held it up. "This is cool mom!", he said. Then, he read the inscription and laughed. It read, "Bruce Tokheim, Assistant Manager - 1974" I had to think about when and why I had gotten that for him. As the memories sifted to the surface of my mind, I remembered it was when we had moved to DesMoines after graduating college and nursing school. We had both gotten REAL JOBS. I was a nurse in the Intensive Care Nursery at Iowa Methodist Hospital and Bruce had gotten a job at the Shakey's Pizza Parlour. His intention was to go to ISU for his masters..but we just happened to stop at the Shakey's in DM to see if they had any work. He had worked at the Shakey's in Cedar Falls, IA during our senior year of college and first year of marriage. They offered him the job of assistant manager right on the spot! We decided it was a job. Actually we were pretty pumped about the 'manager' thing. He soon did become manager of that place and was a damn good one. Plus he learned how to make a mean pizza. Ask any of our kids or their friends. Personal Pan Pizza's was his favorite thing he would do with the kids and their friends on their overnights. So...getting back to this mug. It was his Christmas or Birthday present that first year after we had both gotten full time jobs. I must have felt so excited and so adult to purchase something and then have it engraved. Me, at my big salary of $3.33/hr as an R.N. taking care of critically sick premature babies! My has life changes a bit. I hadn't laid eyes on that mug for years. Lance asked if he could have it. And I said yes...it is yours. He thinks it will be cool to drink a cold beer out of. I am thinking it might have to stay at our home for awhile, so that I can savor these memories a bit longer.

TODAY is Lance's 25th Birthday. Our baby is that old! It is also the first birthday we are celebrating without Bruce. I had planned on fixing pasta for his birthday. Now the menu is going to be PERSONAL PAN PIZZA's..yeah..that just might have to be our tradition from here on out for all of the kids birthdays. Ty's birthday was December 15. That was the day we brought him home from the hospital after the diagnosis. It was so important to both of us that we get home that day. Neither one of us slept the night before. Both of us were remembering what we had done 30 years before. Bruce had just gotten home from Shakey's Pizza after closing that night and I had begun to go into labor. We spent the night in the hospital and Ty was born the next morning. Abby's birthday was on January 30. That was the last week that Bruce was alive. Her highschool girlfriends had planned on coming over on Saturday night to bring dinner and be with all of us. With Bruce's condition deteriorating, the party took on a somber mood upstairs. The quiet chatting of girlfriends and laughter upstairs filtered downstairs to where Bruce and the rest of the family was biding time and keeping watch. Shortly after the girls all left, he did also.
Time goes on and I know that these memories will hold significance for years to come. We will relay the stories of these special birthdays of our kids to their kids about Grandpa being sick, dying and then how we decided every birthday was going to be a Personal Pan Pizza birthday.
Yes, in everything there is a silver lining if we look. I must remind myself of that daily.

My FIESTA WARE has been on my mind. I just have to write about it. Ask anyone how much I love COLOR in my life. I have had pink walls, no...HOT PINK walls in our home. SEABLUE chairs adorn our living room. I can't help it. Bruce was just always... laughing or raising his eyebrows. He may not have agreed with my decorating style, but he allowed me to BE... I loved that about him. So...Fiesta ware dishes sparked my interest several years ago. I built my evergrowing collection one color at a time. After the first of this New Year, in putting away Christmas stuff, I looked at my cupboard of fiesta ware and began to sort the colors from light to dark. The dark went on the bottom. So, for the plates, the salad plates, the bowls..everything was neatly lined up and in order. I loved looking in this cupboard. The top of everything was the WHITE dish/plate/bowl. As I would use them, wash them and put them away..throughout the month of January and Bruce's last weeks, I would put them away in this order. Since Bruce has died, they are all again all mixed up. There is no order to them at all. Thinking about these plates and what I did has consumed my thoughts. I now know that what I was trying to do was make sense of something in my life. Something that I could control and something that pleased me. I had no control over what was happening to Bruce. But, I could control the order in which I put my dishes away. If this seems nonsensical to you, it does to me as well. Yet, I know...without a doubt that it was important to my sanity at the time.

Celebrating life and death happens everyday. Today it is happening in the Tokheim household. Ty just called and invited me out to lunch with the guys and Wendy. We are all filling the shoes and life that Bruce walked in. Tonight, I will do my best to serve up some damn good personal pan pizzas on my colorful fiesta ware. Lance will drink his first beer of many birthdays to come out of his dad's beer stein. Creating memories is continuing to happen in our home. Here's wishing the same in your home as well. Happy Birthday Lance...Love, mom