October 21

I never like to say that a day was wasted, but today wasn't my favorite. Not even close, really. It was just a really, really hard one emotionally. But it was also the day we'd chosen to drive down to Pastorino's Pumpkin Farm, so we kept the plan and I tried to suck it up.

We've been to this particular farm in Half Moon Bay every year since 2003, when we didn't yet have kids and looked enviously at the young parents and their adorably dressed little pumpkins cheesing for the camera. We went in the mid-2000s, when multiple screaming short people in the back seat made the already lengthy trip feel lengthier. We went in 2010, when Logan was sick and I was hugely pregnant with Brady and even in 2011, when Logan was home with us but had started the downhill slide that would eventually claim his earthly life. We even went in 2012, when the very notion of going back without him --and of taking our annual photo by the entrance; the ones that chronicle the growth of the kids from one year to the next-- felt like an utterly unbearable impossibility. So you could say that it's something of a special place for our family.

Anyway, today we took the requisite photos and picked out pumpkins. I strugged with my mood and mostly failed, but I was there. And I felt the old feelings and remembered the old memories of all of the kids in that special place: of all four of them in a wagon, of Logan smiling as he held a delicate purple wildflower to his nose and giggled as it danced in the breeze, of toddler Abby trying to bite the stem off a pumpkin, of chubby little Isaac roving from one gourd to the next in his silent quest to seek out the perfect one. Of smiles and laughter and deep thoughts. And yes, even of tears.

Some special places feel different over time for me, but not this place. So today, I'm thankful that we were able to go back, and more thankful for the memories I continue to carry in my heart.