In case you missed the parade, last Saturday was Triple Niece Day. There’s a simple song we wrote to commemorate it, a repetitious ”Hip Hooray, it’s Triple Niece Day” – which gets stuck in your head and is really irritating after the third time you hear us yell it … thank me later. 
I watched all three of my nieces Saturday, a rare event as oldest niece Amber lives in Florida. “Watched” is probably the wrong word, as my eyes were closed most of the time they were here. You see, in addition to three nieces, I had two ear infections, one very sore throat, and about six headaches. I dozed off on the couch for a couple of hours while Amber kept her younger cousins very busy. I’m not sure busy doing what … but now that I think about it, I’d better check my chocolate ice cream stash.
As I think so often, I wish Tommy could’ve been here for Triple Niece Day. He loved torturing the nieces with tickling and teasing; they loved it as well. Daughter Gigantor made a couple puppy piles of nieces in his honor; Tommy loved stacking up kids. They squealed and protested, but not very much … even when Gigantor climbed atop the squirmy giggling pile.
I’ve been rather emotional lately, probably due in part to not feeling well, but perhaps because golly, it’ll soon be August and I’m afraid of mentally reliving last August’s events, and oh yeah, there’s that little emotional crescendo of MY FIRSTBORN BABY’S WEDDING on Labor Day. (Sigh, smile, and pass the tissues.)
Last night Amber, Gigantor and I checked our two bee hives at Dad’s. (Yep, sadly down to just two. The Notre Dame hive just couldn’t seem to get it going, so I combined it with the U of M hive which is kicking butt. We’ll see if that carries over to football. )
For some reason, Dad LOVES to sit in his lawnchair below and watch us work the hives on his barn roof. Still under the weather, I sat there with him while Gigantor and Amber did a thorough hive check. Last night that consisted of taking apart the three stories of a thriving hive and affirming they still have a queen bee, and that she was laying lots of eggs. That hive must have about 50,000 bees now, and every single one of them was not pleased.
Because of geography, cousins Becca and Amber haven’t spent that much time together, but they bonded over an unusual common interest in bees. There was towering Gigantor in a (very warm) bee suit, accompanied by her shorter cousin also in a (very warm) bee suit, atop a very warm roof, surrounded by annoyed bees. The picture below is of Amber and several hundred of her new friends. A picture is worth a thousand words, but I wish I had a video that captured their laughter, their “ooooh” and “aaaahhhs”, and future scientist Amber’s billion insightful questions.
As Dad and I sat in the setting sun, listening to their laughter intermingled with griping about how sweaty they were (when we could hear them over the buzzing bees), Dad commented “Your Mother would’ve liked to have seen this.”
I of course got teary at that. Maybe it was the tears in my eyes, but I’m fairly certain Dad did also.
My Mom was a beekeeper, and she would’ve loved seeing her granddaughters work so smoothly together through the formidable challenge of assessing an annoyed, thriving hive.
It’s odd how a hobby she loved has sprinkled down two generations. None of us kids had any interest in beekeeping growing up. As an adult I initially had no interest either — I resentfully handled the scary stingers only at Tommy’s pleading the spring he was first fighting cancer … only to become enthralled with everything about these winged wonders.
Watching Gigantor and 14-year-old Amber handling thousands of bees with confidence, acute interest and smiles (even though they both got stung) made my heart smile. Dad and I loved it; Mom would’ve loved it; Tommy would’ve loved that his hobby is such a focal activity for strenthening the family connections.
Hip Hooray!
