Six years in Five Pictures

Tucker brought an assignment home:

Complete a timeline of your life story, with five pictures and simple captions.

Now this is an excellent assignment.  Brilliant, really.  Personal, timely, and filled with learning objectives about self, milestones, and sequencing.  They will hang their timelines in the hallway, and their oral presentations begin this week.

(Why didn't I do this when I was a teacher?)

Six years in five pictures.  That's a significant task, and it calls for some seriously careful selection.

Here's what we came up with.

Tucker was born.

Tucker became a big brother.

Our family went to Disney World.

Our family went to the mountains.

Tucker is in kindergarten.

And this brings us to today.  

We chose not to post Robb's death as a milestone.  Not because it isn't one, but because there's a lot more to Tucker's daddy than the fact that he died too soon.  Robb was in every picture except the current; he was present for every milestone except the current. 

I asked Tucker, "What do you want to say if someone asks about Daddy?"

"Well, he's not here anymore."

"Oh, but he was here.  And he's still in our family.  You can talk about him if you want to."

Tucker smiled.  "I will.  He's my dad."

I don't know if someone will ask.  I don't know if Tucker will choose to tell that part of the story.  But I wanted him to know he could. 

It's his timeline.  His life's story.