Day 48...

This morning my dad and I drove up to Grandma Sue's heatstroke-defiant, lively abode, and the expression on her softly surprised face was worth every lost hour of the past day and a half (and then some). All day long, I melled-out and hung-in and absorbed the whole entirety of her being, become more like a child in the setting of life than perhaps since the first days of its rising. But her eyes were very clear, and her voice just as strong as my oldest memories have yet learned how to remember. She talked about jewelry-making and the blasphemy of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize (its pittance compared with the hole in the moon) and the absurdity of how quickly life finally goes away, after being so simply there for so many years.

It felt so right to have come back, despite its pure craziness in form and circumstance. All day long I've been feeling even more blessed than usual: I'm recognizing that having the ability to put our highest priorities up top where they belong, is a most precious gift. What if I physically couldn't do the best, rightest thing, just because of something so ephemeral as money, time or distance? How lucky that I can often make choices with these things in the background--thanks mostly to the people who love me, and who I could never help but love in return. (And tied somehow, all of this, to the blood ever pulsing through our veins? Or rather the fact of its warmth...?

Got to see Aunt Kathy again for the first time in such a long time, too--and boy does that woman work her buns off! She takes care of everyone around her, naturally, and with familiarity of habit, "just cuz she's so used to it." Oh, and I even got to make a rose for Grandma out of 5 single, dollar bills, just like she's been trying to get me to learn the secrets of for at least a couple years. Finally, I found the time to do it--not to mention the undeniably ideal place...

Faretheewell folk,
-LaW