Yep. I give myself credit. I give us all credit.
Once my parents were back together, it took them about two minutes to get out the plans and start discussing the build, and my dad jumped in like a pro. I got to see my parents through new eyes, working as a team. My mother’s relentless perfectionism, when focused on a project instead of on me, was powerful, inspiring stuff, and my dad’s good-natured practicality was a nice counterweight. They collaborated, and even disagreed, in inspiring harmony.
I guess the design apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, because my mom and I turned out to love all the same things: big windows, stone fireplaces, kitschy Western retro lamps, wagon-wheel fences, deep porches, ceiling fans, clean modern lines with classic farmhouse details, and whimsy.
We really got along okay.
The camp’s been up and running for seven years now. It’s a real, bustling, thriving place. It’s sunny and warm, and the buildings are stone and stucco with tin Texas roofs, and big porches, and shady trees. We’ve got fields of wildflowers and nature trails. Everything is entirely ramp accessible—even the treehouse. We found all kinds of craftspeople to create magic with murals and sculptures and fountains. We made mosaics on the camp gates using all my broken dishes, and now we have a mosaic class where folks get to smash their own.
We run camps all summer for kids, and classes all winter for grown-ups. We have movie nights and cookie contests and charity projects for the sick. We have resource networks and referral systems. We offer classes for the newly injured as well as projects and support for their loved ones. We help people cope with where they are—but we also show them where they can go.
We don’t fix everything, but we sure do make things better.
That’s really become my whole guiding philosophy. I would never tell you that the life you wanted couldn’t have been exactly as great as you planned. But you have to live the life you have. You have to find inspiration in the struggle, and pull joy out of the hardship. That’s what we try to do—counterbalance the suffering with laughter, fuzzy blankets, hugs, sing-alongs, sunny-day picnics, chocolate chip cookies, and wildflowers. Because that’s all we can do: carry the sorrow when we have to, and absolutely savor the joy when we can.
Life is always, always both.
And so: chili cook-offs, karaoke concerts, outdoor movie nights, inner-tubing, nature strolls, campfires, s’mores, skits, painted flowerpots, hayrides, and inspiration of all kinds. We chiseled Ian’s mother’s saying about helping others into a stone lintel above the office doors, and service to others has become a huge part of the program. Kids mentor each other, and teach crafts classes, and work in the garden, and help clean up. They make valentines for other kids who are in the hospital, bake muffins for the elderly, groom the horses, and work with service dogs to help socialize them. They learn through experience—kind of the only way you can—that taking care of others is a way of taking care of yourself.
And, of course, everybody gets a T-shirt that says THAT’S HOW WE ROLL.
Are you wondering what happened with Kitty and Fat Benjamin? As soon as we got back from Europe, he and his hipster beard came charging over to our house to beg Kitty to marry him.
Which she refused to do.
Not her style.
But she did allow a lifetime commitment ceremony, which is pretty much exactly the same thing. And she did tattoo his name on her arm, and she did let him follow her to New York and move in, and he did turn out to be the sweetest, most nurturing mate. And Kitty did give birth to the cutest little cupcake of a baby. Tragically, against all advice, they named her Pandora Snapdragon.
But you can’t get everything right.
Somewhere along the way we decided “Fat Benjamin” was mean and changed his nickname to Sweet Benjamin, even though he insisted he liked Fat Benjamin better. Eventually, he became just Sweetie, which he likes even less.
Pandora got the nickname Dorie from us, which was the best we could do for her, and now she is ten and taller than her mom. Kitty and Uncle Sweetie turned out to be quite fertile, adding two brothers to the mix before Dorie was even five, and moving back to Texas after they were outnumbered.
Tragically, against all advice, they named their two boys Wolfgang and Socrates. But we do not tease the boys about it. Only their parents, late at night, when all the kids are fast asleep, and the grown-ups are playing board games and drinking wine—and we are begging Uncle Sweetikins to shave off that crazy beard.
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OH! I WAS able to get pregnant, too. We were trying for one, but we got surprise boy-girl twins—and while nothing, truly nothing, about that has been easy, they’re six now, and we hope we’re through the worst of it. We named them Captain and Tennille.
Just kidding.
We named them after our four parents: Andrew Clifford and Elizabeth Linda. They play with their cousins at the camp all summer—swimming in the lake, and feeding the horses, and “helping” tend the garden.
Is everything perfect? Hell, no. Everything’s a mess. A crazy, galloping, heartbreaking mess.
You can’t fix everything. Not even close.
But you can look for reasons to be grateful.
More than that, you can work to create them.
That’s what I’ve taken from all this. The crash all those years ago shattered the life I had, but the pieces wound up making a pretty good mosaic. That’s what art is, I suppose: transforming things from what they were into what they could be. My life now, without question, is transformed. Maybe that makes it a work of art.
All I know is, we have as much fun as we can.
Every year on April Fools’ we throw a giant Valentine’s Day party, just so we don’t forget. Love happens all the time. We made a mosaic out of that saying, too.
Do I ever think about the crash? Do I ever wonder what life would have been like if I had married Chip (who’s already on Wife Two), or if I hadn’t gotten hurt, or if I was still that perfect girl I used to be?
Not really.
I know better than to look backward. I know how to try, and how to fail, and how to try again. I know how to live from the inside out. I know to savor every snuggle, every morning swim, every tickle, every meal, every warm bath, every moment when somebody makes you laugh.
More than anything, I know that you just have to choose to make the best of things. You get one life, and it only goes forward. And there really are all kinds of happy endings.