Family

My youngest sister Margaret was diagnosed with an advanced throat cancer several years ago and died last Fall, leaving a big hole in my universe. Learning to live with that hole has been a challenge. Part of me doesn’t want to accept a world without her in it.

Writing has always been an important tool for me, so I wrote something for her memorial. My piece contains echoes from Robert Frost, e.e. cummings, and an Apache blessing. Both writing it and sharing it have given me considerable comfort.

For Margaret: Absens, sed non oblitus

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Most of my family and many of my closest friends call me a pessimist. I disagree. I believe I am a pro-active optimist, someone whose default is that things will work out in the end - but not automatically. Only if we do our part to ensure success.

When I challenge their characterization of me as a pessimist, the response is generally along the lines of: “You always assume the worst possible thing will probably occur.”  But I am not assuming that at all.

For me, Christmas has always been about family time, music, and comfortable traditions.

As I watched my 17 month old granddaughter decode the world, it was impossible not to marvel at the enormity of the task and wonder what was going on behind that so expressive face as she processes the flood of sights, sounds, feelings, tastes, experiences, and consequences. Some predictable, but many not.