My wife and I were born and raised in Wisconsin. We are among the only people in our families that have left the area we grew up in. Our ties to our hometown are prevalent and strong. Despite having lived in Utah for a rather long time by now we still consider ourselves "Sconnies". As such, our little boy is a "Wisco Kid" all the way as far as we are concerned. Our whole family is there, we had our wedding there, and we plan to grow old together there. I am very much a man of the world by now, but a cluster of small towns in rural southeast Wisconsin will always be our home. My wife, Christine, had received the news that she was going to have some business to attend to in Chicago. So it made perfect sense to schedule some time to visit family as well around the business obligation. With Amos' current clean bill of health he has been cleared to travel so of course he was going too.
^Christine and Amos left on a Saturday. I had to work my shifts at Delta Airlines so I would not join them until the following Monday. I smash 32 hours into two days so I would not have the time to miss them all too much anyhow.
^Equipped with plenty of episodes of Thomas and Friends, his favorite juice, and a bundle of snacks, and, according to Christine, Amos was a perfect little gentleman on the airplane. Christine and Amos landed in Appleton, Wisconsin for starters to spend some time with some of Christine's family on the Johnson side of her clan. Great Grandma, Auntie Di, and Uncle Gary to name a few, but Amos got to see some of the Johnson cousins and others up there as well. After a couple days they headed back down south to our hometown area.
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| photo credit: Aunt Marsha |
^My mother, Amos' Nonni, of course can not get enough snuggle time with her little buddy. Amos gobbles it all up too. His Nonni and "Backa", as Amos has come to call my Dad, are among his favorite people. He is always talking about when his Nonni and Backa are coming to visit, or when he gets to go to their house.
^On the tractor with Backa.
^Ripping around the little car Nonni got for him.
^Some action on the slide at the neighbor's house. Amos always has so much fun with his Nonni and Backa. Of course, fun would not even begin to explain the experience from my Mom and Dad's perspective. I have never really seen either of them as happy as they are when they are with their grandkids. It seems that maybe the only reason they had kids was for grandkids! Over at Nonni and Backa's house Amos also got to visit with many of the other Robinson clan that came over to see him like my Uncle Ajax and Aunt Marsha, as well as my Aunt Inky (nicknames are commonplace in the Robinson clan, we all have 'em and most of us go by them daily… J.T. is not my full name).
^Of course, the fun doesn't stop with Nonni and Backa and the Robinson clan. Amos gets around quite a bit any time we can get him home to visit family. Spending a whole day paling around town with his Uncle AJ, and riding the four-wheeler with Papa Phil suits Amos just fine. Amos loves cars, trucks, trains, and basically any transportation vehicle so Uncle AJ's garage is a veritable candy store for Amos.
^New toys and playing in the garage makes Amos a happy boy. In this picture Christine and AJ's girlfriend, Jackie, laugh at his giggles as they blow bubbles at him from a new toy that he came home from Appleton with.
^Happy boy! Bubbles and snowmobiles, yeah, that is right in his wheelhouse!
^Amos and his Great Grandpa Don, GP, as we call him. I can't tell you how it breaks my heart to hear my Grandpa literally talk out loud to my deceased Grandma Rita about Amos as he looks to the sky holding back his tears. At one point he simply sat quietly hugging Amos with his eyes closed and his cheek pressed against Amos' head. I had a Boxer beer with GP and listened to one of his all-time stories about some sort of his latest gaffs. This one involving four or five local fire trucks, squad cars, and countless men looking for a natural gas leak had me busting at the seams. I once heard a great quote, "Getting old ain't for sissies", but my Grandpa does it with classic grace and humor. I hope I can have such a great attitude if I ever make it to his age. My Aunt Joanne and cousin Allissa came over with her daughter, and Amos and her were chasing each other around GP's house in no time.
^My brother's son, Cole, and Amos are going to town on some apple sauce together in this picture. When Amos was sick I thought about these two playing together a lot. My big brother and I had always envisioned our kids would be best friends, and when Amos was fighting cancer the fleeting nature of our dream for them was heartbreaking. I couldn't bare the thought that these two may never know each other. Now watching them play with each other and giggle is still like some kind of dream that I am not sure is real or not. Every time I pinch myself and don't wake up though is the greatest gift I ever hoped it would be during those dark times in a well-lit hospital.
^A good-bye hug… yeah, I barley held it together on that one.
^Then a big hug for my big brother, Tyler, and my heart strings were playing a Ricky Skagg's bluegrass tune, "Spread a Little Love Around". Before Amos had gotten sick I had all kinds of dreams for his life. I had all kinds of ideas about where we would take him, things we would do, and many of those dreams involved my big brother, his wife, and their baby boy. When Amos got sick all of those dreams faded away for a while, and I literally mourned for the life I was unsure that he would ever get to see. Now that Amos is doing so well right now they are all starting to come back like memories of pieces of a dream that I can't quite recall. For a while I wanted to put all those dreams aside because of the uncertainty of their realization. However, every time I see something like this big hug a little bit of those dreams comes back. That whole world that I envisioned for him slowly drifts back with each hug, and each "Uncle Ty" or "Uncle AJ" uttered by his little tiny voice. Amos still has a very long road in his recovery, and his life for that matter, but as we have come to live more and more with a day-to-day attitude I am still reluctant to get too far ahead with dreams for his life. However, that is a little easier to overcome when the days are so good that they feel like those dreams actually coming true. If there is one blessing to come from his cancer battle, and there have actually been many, this hug, this trip, seeing him with these people… that is surely a blessing that my wife and I appreciate so much my words can never do it justice. So like Ricky Skaggs belts through a microphone, "we can change the whole world if we start in our hometown. So get out today, and spread a little love around."
