Like fireflies in mason jars...

The heat this week has been unforgiving; the humidity a blatant bully. It’s the kind of heat that causes me to reconsider all of my life choices, the kind that necessitates head-to-toe linen and that whole-body deodorant advertised on television because of the sweat beading up in all the nooks and crannies, in places I didn’t think possible. The kind of humidity that has me clutching my inhaler like a security blanket and considering shaving my head bald.

Reminders of the heat are everywhere, like the traffic light I sat at yesterday, sandwiched between a pool supply company van and a Reddy bagged ice delivery truck. My short-haired dog doesn’t even want to bother with his daily walks, panting and dragging his paws like he’s being punished.

On the upside, I have enjoyed what will be two full weeks of time to myself (and with Kelley, when he’s not working), as the kids have been staying with family in Mississippi, collecting memories like fireflies in mason jars. (They’ve also, quite literally, been catching fireflies in jars.)

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of summertimes spent at my grandparents’ homes. Playing on a rainy day in a galvanized tub that, miraculously, my younger cousin Hannah and I both fit in. Driving to the local snow cone shop with my aunt Martha for my favorite strawberry-and-cream combination. Transforming the towering cedar in the front yard into a cozy home, swinging on the sturdy, expansive limbs and setting up tea parties under the fluffy branches. I remember one summer day, I climbed resolutely almost to the very top. I couldn’t find the way back down, however, and panicked, and Hannah fetched my older cousin Ben to rescue me.

I had three girl cousins who were stair-stepped with me in ages. We didn’t see each other nearly enough, as our homes were spread out in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida. But we were pen pals, best friends, and in our teen years, bandmates. I come from quite a large family on my dad’s side, with close to 20 cousins out of my dad and his six sisters. There were days I never even saw my parents in my grandparents’ large home that they built over the course of my dad’s teen years, but there was no shortage of watchful eyes—the older cousins looking after the younger, the younger getting into harmless mischief but working it all out eventually. With my cousins, we learned conflict resolution, teamwork, loyalty, and the words to “Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music, which my cousin Angela forced us to watch on repeat. (That movie triggers me to this day.) We dressed up in my grandmother’s vintage dresses and played wedding, stayed up late engaging in delicious girl talk, snuck barefoot to the deep freezer in the laundry room for Pop-ice, which we double-fisted back to our room in the back of the house while everyone else slept. During the days, my cousins and I would hide out in the woods, executing elaborate imaginative play under cover of the pines as mosquito bites dotted my scraped-up legs.

I remember my grandfather and all of his epic dad (granddad?) jokes. “How do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky: LOO-EE-ville or LOO-IS-ville?” After his unsuspecting victim made their selection, he’d boom, “Well, I pronounce it FRANKFURT!” and laugh exuberantly. I’d walk hand-in-hand with my Granddaddy down to his pond to feed the fish from his “slop bucket” (what would now be more sophisticatedly referred to as a compost bin) and practice reading with my grandmother, who wore short curls and cat-eye glasses as a teacher and librarian at the local school.

My mom, the oldest of five, had a large family as well. I hold close the memories of riding in the back of my Papaw’s pickup and learning to fish on the pond at his hunting camp, ending the days with a family fish fry. Sometimes on a Saturday morning, my uncle Robby would swing by to pick me up for a doughnut run, or my aunts Rebecca and Dianna would take me through the drive-thru themselves, coaxing me to confess which of them was my favorite.

“Stephanie,” I’d reply, referring to my uncle Jimmy’s wife, to which both of them would (slightly and playfully) bristle with indignation.

I loved going on shopping trips with my impossibly generous grandma to Toys R Us, where she would spoil me with a new toy or two. Riding with my Papaw anywhere in his oversized Ford pickup was such a treat (especially when we’d go to his bank, and the teller would slip me a strawberry-flavored sucker), and I can still hear my grandma’s sweet voice singing songs from her younger years.

These are the memories that return to me when the heat picks up. When I pass a Krispy Kreme or watch my kids snip the tops off their oblong freezer pops. When I see the fireflies sparkle at dusk, or when I catch the smell of cedar. It makes my heart swell to think that my kids will carry these same types of memories with them throughout the rest of their lives: rating daring dives off the board at their cousins’ pool, constructing LEGO sets and playing board games like Monopoly and LIFE together. This past week, they’ve fashioned fishing poles out of cane in the backyard and caught crawfish in the creek out front. Liam has learned how to drive the John Deere Gator with the help of his Honey (Kelley’s mom), whom he drives around the 30-plus-acre property. They are spending such precious time with ones who can teach them the things that I can’t, and I’m so grateful for it.

I’ve missed them terribly, but I am happy to be picking them up next week with their lumpy luggage and mason jars full of memories, their faces freshly freckled and legs dotted with mosquito bites.