Hi, my little bluebird,
Doesn’t Penny take great photos? Wow, you have good friends,
the kind that know just what you want, how to give it, and when. And there’s
Sherry and Hannah and Mr. Wonderful and so many others. And well, John has been
an entire solar system. What a team.
Cousin Pam wrote to tell me to ask if little whimpers of
pain were escaping my heart from Aunt Priscilla’s death (she’s quite a writer),
and I said, yes, and some pains are paper cuts, somewhere between a whimper and
a gut punch. For instance, last weekend at our cabin in Mosier, Oregon, when
walking my dog early in the morning, I heard a sound I’d never heard before,
getting louder coming toward me. It was a short burst, a lung-full, high,
scared. Then, I saw deer bunch up when they saw me and were more afraid of me
than they were of the thing chasing them. That sound. Just sometimes when I’m
not sure where to go.
To Pam I tried to articulate the tears that sprang into my
eyes on a steep downhill on the path at the end of my 45-mile ride (3,200 ft
elevation), the same path we all walked last summer when all the siblings came
out here. I don’t usually cry on downhills (sometimes uphills…), but the cold
in the eyes was a good cover for the mix of emotions. The way you sidle up to
each of your siblings (and possibly son and husband) and those long,
piano-fingers become pinching machines has trained us to love your closeness
and laugh/cringe at what you deliver. We spent that walk weaving in and out of
each other, all of us sibs.
And the tears were for missing you and for the joy of
getting to see you this weekend and for the joy of your seeing that garden that
Penny and others have prepared and the tender way that John will hug you into
the car and out of the car and into the wheelchair and through your garden and
to your new spot. It’s all magic, a mix of strength and mischief and undeniable
love.
See you this weekend, my sweet.
-Kate
No comments:
Post a Comment