With Great Hope

It's been a good year in spite of much sadness.

I'm thinking about my intentions for the new year.

Happy New Year...



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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Peace & Love to All

In some ways, this Christmas is harder than last year. But I am gamely working to make it through. There have been times of joy, and I will write more later.

And I will catch up with responding to your kind and lovely comments of encouragement that have been much needed lately by me! Thanks! 

Just hoping any who drop by are having a loving holiday season.

The Road I Travel

Tonight I'm grateful to be able to send off a narrative litany of complaint to a friend who doesn't panic and won't buy into the complaint parts of the note, but instead reminds me, "I still like your funny--usually--narratives. I'm still pulling for the healing to be quick, the infections to be held at bay, and for the pain meds to be needed as briefly as possible!"

I'm also grateful for the naïveté to be cheered on just because I know others are pulling for me (as if their pulling for me actually has any power to make things better)!

Tonight I am also extremely grateful for a doctor who was willing to go in and fix a mess he did not create. His assistant said a lot of doctors would not have touched this case. I certainly understand. How fortunate I am.


Tonight (and always it seems), I am on The Road to Recovery. I am grateful.

(This is my contribution to Gallery 35, "The Roads I Travel" of the 52 Photos Project.)

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Now For the Next Thing...

I'm back from my silent retreat. This is the view from one of my favorite reflection spots during the weekend. I'm still reflecting on the weekend and don't have much to say at this point, other than it was a good thing for me.


Tomorrow I go for surgery, again, to remove the lump under my jawline. It seems the original doctor did not remove the lump. It will be a 1-2 week recovery. Prayers and healing thoughts would be appreciated.

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Remembrance and Silence

Today marks the 18th anniversary of my brother's death.


My sister was teasing me about doubling up on my talking today so I'd be sure and use up my allotment and I remembered how she still owes our brother a huge sum of money because she bet him he couldn't be quiet for the rest of the trip to our grandparents' house and he did it! I'm wondering if I can collect on his behalf (she says she doesn't think so)!

I am going on a silent retreat this weekend. I've been wanting to do one since I first heard about them in the late nineties. It's been on my Unofficial Bucket List (the one I keep in my head) all this time. And now I'm doing it!

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One Year

December 8 will make one year. I don't know what else to say.

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Preparations

This is Monday of the week before he died on December 8th. We are planning on going to our little place in the country. Our daughters will be there with us. My parents will be there with us. I will probably cook gumbo. We will visit the cemetery. We will plant a "rain tree" in his memory. There will be tears, sweet memories and stories.

When I think of planting a tree in his memory I remember how someone from our church sent us a tree to plant when my brother died in December of 1994. It was a Bradford pear. We had it all planted in the center of the yard, just back from the two big oak trees.

My son would have been seven years old. He had been riding a bike for three or four years by then. On the day I am thinking of, he came rolling into the driveway and said "Look, Mom!" He jumped off the bike without stopping it and thrust his hands into the air while the bike curved around and made a direct hit on my Bradford pear tree, breaking the slender truck off three inches from the ground. What are the odds that the bike would run into the newest most meaningful tree in my yard? I have no idea but my dear son managed to make it happen. He beat the odds on that day.