Visitor: Shoshana's Family
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
The following entries are memories of Shoshana's mother, Tina Huckabee. We know there are thousands of memories of Shoshana still out there and we wish to capture those memories so they don't get lost. If these memories remind you of any incidents of Shoshana's life, please add them to the memory book. Please encourage your friends and all those who know Shoshana to do the same.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
April 6, 2007
One year ago today, Shoshana, Lydia, and I worked at TLAC. I had scheduled her to work because it was Good Friday and AISD had the day off. It was also Pesach. It was a beautiful day-a bit warm as I recall. She said that she and Lydia had planned to do something, and she asked if Lydia could come with us and I said ok.
We sat in the large, shaded pen by the TLAC drive. The girls both took the two chairs (being selfish, self-centered teenagers) and I sat on the ground. Actually, I recall Lydia asking me if I would like the chair. (I don't recall Shoshana doing the same.) I don't remember any of the dogs we took out and worked with that day except for one. There was a beautiful dog that was also very smart. Dogs never get loose from me, but I must have lost this dog 3 or 4 times during several visits. That day, she got away twice. She was very adept at recognizing the loosening of the leash around her neck and then she would back out and away she went. She was also heartworm positive so she was not supposed to run around. She tore around the area where the barn is and I was frantically trying to catch her. Both girls were laughing their heads off and were no help at all. Later, we sat on a cement bench and we petted that beautiful, smart dog; I can't remember the dog's name. That was the last time that Shoshana worked at TLAC. Shoshana died exactly two weeks later.
The time before that, we had taken a dog to the large pen in the back where only staff and volunteers are allowed to go. There was a goat in the adjoining pen and the goat teased the dog mercilessly. The dog was running back and forth making these "squealing breaks" sounds and Shoshi and I laughed so hard that we hurt. The dog was completely entranced with the goat and wanted to get to it. The goat seemed to know that it was safe behind the fence so it pranced along the fence and drove that dog nuts. I still think of that goat, the silly dog and Shoshana's laughter every time I work with a dog in that pen.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
Last summer I slept deeply most nights and one night I fell asleep remembering that once in the months before Shoshana died we were holding hands while we walked. I know that I grabbed her hand as we crossed a street or a parking lot and we continued to hold hands after there was no need. I have tried to remember where we were and I can't. I remember how nice it was to fall asleep feeling her hand in mine. Some of my memories are behind doors that seem to be locked. I hate that I can't access those memories. I find it frustrating that I can't always remember things like I want.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
When I pick Aaron up from the bus stop, I almost always envision Shoshana getting off the bus with Laura. The memory I have is not the Shoshana of the last month or so, but the Shoshana of December/January timeframe. She is wearing a poncho that she bought at the Hanukah bazaar in December. She used up all of her savings for the poncho. It is a pretty blue and very soft. It is in her closet and smells like her. I can picture her wearing it; her hair is in a ponytail with the little braid that she wore on the left side of her face. Her (very heavy) backpack is slung to one side and she is carrying her clarinet case. She always has a smile because she is talking to Laura and they have obviously just shared something humorous.
When she would get into the car, as I drove home (or wherever we were going), I would always ask, "How was your day?" and she would answer, "Goo-ood." The `goo' was lower in tone and the `ood' ended on a higher note. She always stretched the `good' out, but with a slightly tired tenor to her voice. I would always glance into the rearview mirror and she would have her head leaning on the window and she would be looking out of the window.
Aaron always is full of news, gossip and is very talkative at the end of his school day. Shoshana was usually quiet for the first hour or so until she ate and relaxed some. I recall that her second grade teacher was surprised when I told her that I generally had to pull out of Shoshana what she had done that day. I remember the teacher saying, "Oh, I thought that she would be very chatty!" She did generally share stories, but not at first.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
Shoshana always fell asleep with motion. When she was a baby and I would take her (and usually a dog) for a walk and she always fell asleep. Always, always in the car, she would fall asleep. When the kids were little, I liked it because (once I got home) I could get Aaron out of the car seat first (he rarely falls asleep in the car) and get anything else out of the car before I got Shoshi out. Sometimes, it was a problem, because I didn't want her to sleep and I would have to get her up and she would be grumpy. When we've traveled to Great Britain, she would always fall asleep on the trains of the Underground or the trains that we took out of London. As she got older, she would read or draw when she was in the car for any length of time. (When she wasn't asleep.) She would always perk up if one of us pointed out that there were horses in a field or someone passed us on the road with a trailer that had horses in it. Someone told me that she had to change her route to work after Shoshi died because she passed a field with some horses in it and she would start crying for Shoshana.
The last time I went to Corpus Christi to see my family it seemed like there were horses everywhere I looked. I thought, "Why couldn't there have been this many in all the trips that we took with Shoshana?"
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
It's Passover and Shoshana liked matzah. A strange Jew. She was like me in that she loved all carbohydrates. Years ago, before I had children, I joked that I missed chocolate bunnies. I didn't really, but my mother-in-law (who is REALLY into antique things) found a metal rabbit mold. Once I had children, I had the idea to make what I eventually started calling "Passover Hares." I would buy the parve (non-dairy) chocolate chips, melt the chocolate and pour the melted chocolate into the mold. Generally, the Passover Hares turned out really well and I usually used them as the prize for finding the afikomen at our seder. The kids had this really rich, solid chocolate "hare" to eat (ears first, of course! then the head!) I need to make Aaron a Passover Hare this year. I haven't found the inspiration for that yet-but I will.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
This coming summer, the last Harry Potter novel and the 5th movie will be released. Shoshana loved Harry Potter. We would have endless conversations about various plot lines in the series. We read through the books thoroughly, pulling out evidence that would support our claims that Dumbledore was indeed still alive. We had logged onto the "Dumbledore's not dead.com" website and had poured over all the examples the site offered (plus, a few of our own), that Harry won't be without Dumbledore as he faces Voldemort.
Shoshana started reading the series the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade while we were visiting London for two weeks. We have the British (and American) versions of books 1-4. (We also have double copies of books 5 and 6-we've done our part to make JK Rowling a wealthy woman.) I still remember Shoshana asking what `forget-me-not' blue is. Rowling had used that term to describe the color of the sky at Hogwarts in one scene in the first book. We love the series. She adored Fred and George Weasley.
Shoshana devoured books. Her first word was "ree"-I read to her when she was an infant and even as a baby she loved books. Before she could walk, she would crawl to her small bookshelf and pull books off the shelf and look through them. When she was older, we had to crack down on her (especially at night when it was way past her bedtime) to put the book up and go to sleep. There were many times (usually Friday or Saturday nights, or in the summer when our schedule was more flexible), that I would wake up at 1 or 2 am and I could tell by the light in the hallway that her light was still on. I would get up and check on her and she would be sound asleep with the book lying on her chest. I loved putting the book on her table and sitting beside her on the bed and kissing her forehead. I love the sigh she gave when she would move slightly because I was disturbing her slumber. Now, at night I walk to her closed bedroom door and look up at the very slight crack to see if I can see the light (that's how I could tell if she was still awake when she wasn't supposed to be). I want the see the light on and it never is.
Note - the next paragraph contains information that might spoil the end of the Bartimeus trilogy.
She especially loved Harry Potter, but her other favorites were the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Bartimaeus trilogy and The Hitchhiker's Guide series. Interestingly, these are all British. We would joke about how Tolkien really needed a good editor; we would discuss whether Nathaniel (in the last Bartimaeus book) had survived the explosion. (Steven thought that he had-Shoshana, Aaron and I thought he was barking mad to think that. We all looked at Steve when he came to breakfast one Saturday morning and announced that he thought Nathaniel survived-we cracked up and all three of us teased Steven about that for days). I never got into the Hitchhiker's Guide as much as Shoshana, Aaron, and Steven, but they talked about it a great deal. Shoshana read the Lord of the Rings, 6 or 7 times: I suggested that there was something seriously wrong with her that she wanted to reread that series so many times. More impressively, she liked Tolkien so much she actually got through the whole Silmarillion.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
When the kids were little, Steven would lie with the kids in our bed and read to them every night. He read all the children's classics that every adult should reread. He read Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Phantom Tollbooth, My Side of the Mountain, Arabian Nights, and many others. He was a little sad as the kids grew older and wanted to go into their rooms to read by themselves before bedtime. I recall saying to him that this is the next step and they need to develop this joy of reading on their own.
In the last year of her life, Shoshana would sometimes ask me about a book that I was reading. I would give her a general outline and she would often want to read it. Usually, the book was a bit too adult for her. It was either a history or a novel with (as Shoshana would say), "CONTENT." She would hold up her hands and do quotation marks with her fingers as she said "CONTENT."
I love Jane Austin. Her characters are as true today in 21st century United States as they were in 19th century England. (I have relatives that are straight out of Pride and Prejudice.) I was eager for Shoshana to begin reading some of the classic, more mature fiction. Laura read Pride and Prejudice and saw the A & E production (we lent her both the book and the dvd) just recently for her Language Arts class. Shoshana did read Jane Eyre, but died before she could finish it. It is painful to me that Shoshana will never read or experience any of that fiction that I love.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
Last week at Shabbat morning service, I watched a pair of siblings play. The girl is in first grade and the boy is pre-school age. I often watch these two as they play and interact at services because they remind me of Shoshi and Aaron when they were little.
The boy was on the back of his sister (riding as if she was a horse), and I leaned over to the mom and told her about a game called "honkey-donkey." Aaron would get on Shoshana's back (she was no more than 4 or 5) she would take him for rides and sometimes buck him off. I let them play this until I thought Aaron was a little too big for her.
When Shoshana was about (maybe not even?) two she love the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit stories. I would watch her engage in some make-believe play where she had some adventure wandering in my gardens looking for Mr. McGregor. She was still learning to talk and create sentences, so we didn't always know what was going on in her play, but I know that she seemed very concerned that Mr. McGregor was up to no good.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
Shoshana and Aaron had all sorts of games that they played when they were little. They would play "George and Honey" and "George and Mommy"-Shoshana was the older so she was the indisputable boss of the games. They got along remarkable well and I recall watching them play and create the interesting games. I was fascinated that they created whole scenes and realities to use in their play.
Because we live in a neighborhood with few kids, my two had to be the best of playmates and they were. Even as they grew older and especially during the summer when they weren't in camp or the three of us weren't swimming or hiking, they spent lots of time just playing together. When they were allowed to play on the computer I would listen to them howl with laughter as they took turns playing games. Aaron says that STX was the best game. They would also play ball games outside. Shoshana was VERY competitive and I had to keep a close watch so that she didn't change rules mid-game so that she could win. Aaron was always better at basketball than Shoshana was. That was one game he always bested her at. To her credit in her last year, she was pretty good (not always) about losing to him.
Visitor: Tina Huckabee
Time: April 7, 2007 9:35 PM
Up until her last year, Shoshana would often go into the backyard a prance around like a horse; she would bob her head and lift her legs like a Tennessee walking horse. She was pretending to be a horse or pretending to be riding one. She would go out in the hottest time of the day during the summer. The heat never seemed to bother her.
I kept waiting for her to outgrow her love of horses. It was a fairly typical love affair when she was little, but she continued her interest, as she grew older. Her 3rd grade science fair project was an analysis of the physical characteristics that made a thoroughbred horse an excellent runner. She took English riding lessons in 3rd grade for almost a year. I recall picking her up from the stable on a cold, wet day and watching her muck in the stall. She was dirty and stinky and completely happy. She always said that she loved the smell of horses.
I've never been all that interested in horses. Shoshana couldn't believe that I had never ridden a horse-it was just unfathomable to her. On one trip to Port Aransas, we went horseback riding on the beach. Shoshana really wanted me to ride with them that day, so I said ok. I asked for the smallest, gentlest nag available. I got up on that horse, had some brief instructions on what to do, and started riding. At one point, the horse started to eat the grass; I wasn't interested in telling the poor thing that he couldn't have a snack and let him. Shoshana chided me for not being in control of the horse and the situation. I argued that control wasn't the point that the horse should be allowed to eat when he wanted to. We went back and forth on the whole ride with her criticism about my handling skills. She always teased me about it and I would debate her on the merits of treating the horse with kindness and letting him eat. She would shake her head sadly and roll her eyes.