Yesterday I posted the details about the kids games and more BryonySeries will be running out of three to four tents on July 3 at the annual Independence Celebration at the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park Theatre in Joliet.
Of all the events we run, this one has the most meaning to me.
On July 3, 1998, I'd been a single mom for five months.
My house was falling apart.
My six kids ages 2 through 15 were undisciplined and unruly.
I had no steady income (but was working four different jobs around the clock, literally around the clock).
And I had reached a level of exhaustion I'd never thought possible.
My neighbor, a lovely woman (Sarah still calls her a second mom), also a single mom who was working three jobs (one was a longterm daycare from her home), mentioned Bicentennial Park was having fireworks and would I go with her?
She also wanted to walk and pick up a friend who lived on Jefferson Street, because she said parking would be terrible and it would take a long time to leave the park.
The kids thought that would be a great adventure.
I don't remember if I'd brought the wagon to pull the youngest two, although I must have brought it.
I vaguely recall the walk down to the park and none of the walk back.
Did we pack snacks? Were water bottles a thing? I have don't remember that either. Wait, I have a murky recollection of my single mom friend with little baggies of snacks she packed. Probably little juice boxes, to. I think.
But I do remember sitting at the top of the hill near Bluff Street around twilight, when it was still too early for fireworks, too tired to move and too tired to even buy the kids the $1 hot dogs the park was selling at the event.
And yet, armed with the willingness to work hard and a strong desire to make a better life for the kids, somehow, somehow, I carved out anew life for us.
Volunteers came out to help my dad put that house back together. That included two single dads with their two sons each - and one of those dads eventually became my children's stepfather.
And Ron and I worked together to install discipline and order - and we remodeled his house while finishing mine, to prepare for seven people moving into it. So at one point, he and I were working two jobs each and remodeling two homes.
I developed two of the four jobs enough to let the two babysitting jobs and running the crew of kids selling newspaper subscriptions go. But Ron and I delivered newspapers in the middle of the night until the end of 2012 - and my fifteen-year freelance career turned into a staff position at The Herald-News in Joliet in January 2014.
The exhaustion remained for more than a dozen years until the five hours of sleep a night crept until four. I washing the mudroom floor on my hands and knees at two in the morning when the entire room spun. And I threw that rag down and said to myself, "Something has to give. And it's not going to be me."
I meant it.
Today, I rarely get less than six hours of sleep a night and many times it's more than that.
Our neighbor passed from lung cancer about a decade ago, reuniting her with the infant son who passed shortly after his birth.
My kids - the six of my own and my three stepchildren - are loving, hardworking people of fine character and integrity, and successful in their own ways. I am proud of every one of them.
I wish future me could have sat next to dejected me on that hill at Bicentennial Park on July 3, 1998, and pointed out the spot my kids and I would be set up with tents, running free children's games and BryonySeries giveaways. I wouldn't have believed it, of course. But I'm sure it would have given me hope and encouragment.
So we are not just handing out free stuff and selling books at our tent on July 3. There's a huge infrastructure behind what we're doing and why we're doing it - and how we deliver the experience for those few hours.
Finally, while this last blessing might not be the most important one, it's still worth noting.
We can now buy all the hot dogs we want.
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