serenity funeral home obituaries holly springs mississippi

Shyly and tepidly we emerged like kidnapped tourists with blindfolds off at the light of dawn. Our governor, Tim Balz-to-the Walz, a reasonable and pragmatic, plain-spoken leader who, when he erred he did so out of compassion and too much trust in people to police themselves, lifted significant public restrictions related to the pandemic although he did not terminate his emergency powers just yet. Construction displaced demolition where the riots of ZOZO burned.

Spring disinfected the terrain and brought the earth back to life like Lazarus. She picked a commodious rental in the town of Estes Park, nearer to the same entrance to the national park. Roxanne polled the family and we decided to try again for Colorado. In the depth of a petulant winter the vaccines arrived. ZOZO, the long lost year of deprivation and sacrifice, anxiety, loneliness, disconnection and a massive disruption of society as we simultaneously erupted in a great clamor to survive, eventually evolved into a new year of hope and aspiration. We knew well before April there would be no vacation in Colorado that June.

We formed a pod with Vincent and Amalie so we could sometimes watch Neko, who was out of day care, while Amalie worked from home and Vincent looked for work. It seemed we saw more of the Kysylyczyns when they lived in Switzerland. The covid-19 pandemic wiped out not only that vacation but practically shut down Thanksgiving and Christmas and all our birthdays and most every occasion we took for granted as commonplace. She booked it about seven months in advance and we had until April to cancel and get our deposit back. Roxanne booked a home-away rental at a town called Allenspark, near the Beaver Meadows entrance to the national park. Last summer we planned a week in late June near Rocky Mountain National Park. Roxanne and Michel collaborated to find accommodations at cosmopolitan destinations or near national parks. Vincent became an expert at finding cabins on lakes near the Canadian border. This coincided with the advent of grandchildren, along with the grandparents having the means to front group excursions, and as products of opportunity and common prosperity the family vacation evolved towards tradition. The family vacation revival emerged while our kids grew up and seemed to notice we were still rather viable people who liked to go places and do things. I’ve always wished they would come down for a week and stay with us at Ixtapa, but that’s another story. Before Michel married Sid we took an extended weekend to Wisconsin Dells and lived in a water park, rode the Ducks and got an old timey family portrait. The teenage years, high school, then college, significant others, jobs, independence leading to an empty nest nurtured a gap in spending extended leisure time with parents. Vincent got the Caribbean, Cancun and the Yucatan at Chichen Itza. For Michel’s 13th birthday we took a road trip west to Los Angeles, saw Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Hollywood and Compton - it was 1991 and I used to say for that birthday I gave her the Pacific Ocean. We used to go camping and sightseeing around the region when they were little kids. Family vacation in fact revived itself as our kids matured and took a greater interest in spending time with Roxanne and me. Not all together every year, as it’s hard to get simultaneous time off for the working kids. We have convened in northern Minnesota, of course, and also southern Utah, Normandy in France and Venice in Italy while the Kysyslyczyns lived in Switzerland. Our nuclear family vacations epitomize all the dynamics composing who we are, maybe more so this year than any other. It’s easy to see how Tess would infer family durability as a self evident truth. She and I as well as Sid and Amelie come from extended families, and we mix casually and frequently. Both Roxanne’s and my parents are deceased. Currently we all live here on the south side of the city in separate residences within a few miles of each other. There are nine of us: Roxanne and I our daughter Michel, her husband Sid and their daughters Clara and Tess, the Kysylyczyns and our son Vincent, his wife Amelie and their two year old daughter Neko.

“Our family is permanent.” So affirmed my granddaughter Tess on a Christmas card when she was five.

Serenity funeral home obituaries holly springs mississippi