In With A Bang

I love the 4th of July.  As children, my sisters, cousins, and assorted others would gather for lunch at my Grandma and Grandpa Emberlin’s house.  Fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, and you name it, would be on this huge table in their backyard.  We would fill our plates and gather together to enjoy each other’s company and a meal.  The older kids would set off fireworks and send the rest of us scattering to find our parents.  

Later in the evening, we would go to my Grandma Norman’s house.  My aunts and uncles, along with my parents, would set off fireworks in the front yard.  We would eat homemade ice cream made my my grandmother and then the parents would put us all to bed.  This was easy for my parents because we lived across the street from my grandmother.  Leslie and Tricia, the cousins,  would camp out in the spare room at the grandparents.  The folks would stay up late playing cards, snacking, telling childhood stories, and celebrating my mother’s birthday which was on the 5th.  All of this would be done around a table set up in the front of my grandmother’s house so they could keep an eye out for the kids and still visit.  It was an exhausting but wonderful day!

Mike and I married in 1980 and began our own tradition.  We would spend lunch with Mike’s parents and then they would join us in the park and we would watch the fireworks.  Our first July 4th was celebrated with Paul nestled on his grandfather’s shoulder sleeping soundly. The next year found him toddling around with his cousin Anthony eating dirt under the watchful eye of his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and parents. 

On July 4, 1983, Mike and I sat in the window of Moore Hospital with our new daughter and watched the fireworks.  She arrived with a bang at 4:17 in the morning weighing in at 6 pounds and 13 ounces. She was 18 inches long and had the temper that equaled those fireworks we watched.  I will never forget how she howled from the moment she entered this world.  They took her to the nursery to clean her up and she howled.  They brought her back to nurse and she howled.  Her Grandma Emberlin tried to comfort her and she howled.  Nothing I could do would comfort her so she howled.  Then the most amazing thing happened, her father took her in his arms, asked her what what wrong, she puckered her lip, and immediately stopped howling.  From that moment  forward, a bond was  forged that was amazing and still exists today. 

Tamara Lynn Mashaney came into this world on July 4, 1983 and shared a birthday with her Grandmother Mashaney who was born on July 4, 1938.  With the exception of the year she was born, we have always celebrated the 4th with a trip to the park to watch the fireworks.  She is twenty-nine-years-old this year and we’ve never missed this tradition.  This year will be no different. Her dad will grill hamburgers, and I will make the ice cream.  Friends and family will join us to celebrate her birthday, and as the sun sets over the horizon, we will watch the fireworks.  

Mike and I will hold hands, remember his mother and mine who are certainly missed.  We will watch as Kayla and Jaxon ewww and ahhh over the fireworks, and we will remember the day that their mother came into this world with a bang.  We truly are exceedingly blessed!

Lora