Jason’s Last Night: Rough Start, Great Finish!

I had all sorts of hopes and dreams for our family for the night before Cindy Lynn got married; I saw it as a pivotal moment in our family, and I wanted it to be a last time to bond and celebrate our family. Instead the photographer wanted us to look at the zillions of pictures she’d taken and that took forever, and the restaurant took over an hour to bring our food. By the time I even got dinner I think it was close to 10pm and I’d lost that loving feeling. Completely. The wedding still went off beautifully and we had a great time. But I regretted not having that moment together. And I was very happy when we really did have the exact moment I’d envisioned the next summer.

I also had ideas of how I wanted Jason’s last night at home to feel. We were going to go to Duke Gardens to have a family picture taken, (thank you Lindsay!!!) but then I wanted us to really spend time together as a family.

Our evening got off to a rough start. When we got to Duke Gardens it was about 90 degrees, but it didn’t feel too bad. We made our way to the duck pond where there are some cool rocks that have been the backdrop for pictures over the years. When we started trying to arrange people on the rocks things started to get a little dicey. Not only were the rocks hard as, well, rocks, (to be expected) they were also hot as could be from the accumulated heat of the day. (unexpected) So in addition to the 90 degrees, and the 90% humidity, now we had an oven-like environment thanks to the rocks. It was not very pleasant. I begged and bribed and cajoled and brought out frozen water bottles, and somehow we got through it. When it was over we were ALL dripping with sweat, including our lovely photographer.

Then came the next rough part of our evening. I always provide an incentive when we’re going to have family pictures. (Doesn’t incentive sound so much better than bribe?) I learned the year Cindy Lynn graduated and we took our first big beach picture that just because we were paying a lot of money for a picture and it was fantastically important to me didn’t mean people’s faces were going to cooperate. My family is now trained that if they cooperate, there’s something good coming for them afterwards. I’d known that it would be a warm adventure to have a family picture taken on an August evening, so I’d proposed several options that could cool us down afterwards. One was to go to Cookout, a little drive through place where Jason worked his senior year, for milkshakes. The other was to go to ChickFilA. The little kids were dead set on going to cookout—but I hadn’t realized that there was no place to stay there and eat our shakes outside. Plus, it was outside and we were so hot already! It took a while but I finally got everyone to agree that going to ChickFilA would be acceptable, so we climbed into our blissfully air-conditioned cars and took off.

Once we got to ChickFilA things got much much better. The cashier was a little overwhelmed by our order of 10 milkshakes, a brownie, fries, and 9 ice waters, but she was a good sport and even offered to bring them out to us. The little kids went to play in the play area (thankfully we were the only ones there so no one noticed that we were pushing the size limits) and we pulled a couple of tables together and sat down. We had such fun there—still cooling off, just chatting and laughing and enjoying each other’s company. The waffle fries didn’t go far, so Russ had to keep going back to order more. Josh thought their new ketchup packets were so cool that he brought a couple home with him. (Don’t ask me why!) And the kids were all thrilled to have their very own milkshake. (I think sharing is a very healthy skill to grow up with. And I am too frugal to buy people their own shakes, usually.) We stayed at ChickFilA long enough that the manager brought us out a pile of coupons for free chicken sandwiches. Nice!

When we got home we started the little kids moving towards bed and then Cindy Lynn asked if we wanted to play a game while she did therapy. I readily agreed and persuaded Jason that he should play one last game of german Ticket to Ride with us. It was a tough and competitive game, and we had lots of fun.

When we were done playing Jason went and did a little more packing and I hemmed his white pants. After that we played a few rounds of speed scrabble. Then, before bed, Russ gave both Jason and Cindy Lynn father’s blessings. It was really a beautiful and tender moment. I could hear in Russ’s blessing for Jason many thoughts and feelings about his own mission, and it touched my heart deeply to hear him draw from his own experiences to bless Jason. I think by the time he was done giving Cindy Lynn a blessing we were all teary (except maybe Mahon). By the time we all went to bed I was feeling deeply satisfied with our evening and the time spent together. One last round of memories to get us through the next two years!