Holidays – I-70 WEST AND BEYOND

Thanksgiving, revisited.

Thanksgiving, 2024

Life is short. Make it sweet.

These words were printed on a wooden block that fell off a shelf and landed inches from my feet as I filled my coffee cup at McClain’s Bakery in Kansas City. I picked up the block just as an employee came over, profusely apologizing, and returned it to the shelf next to the coffee urns.

I took my coffee to a nearby table and opened my computer to work on some writing, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the falling block and its message. It felt like a tap on the shoulder that I couldn’t ignore. Life is short. Make it sweet. It also felt like something Dad would have noticed, possibly adding that he could have made a better block with carved letters rather than painted ones. I think Dad was trying to bring those words to my attention with a block that was not precariously perched, but fell anyway and landed at my feet.

In the past several months, I’ve experienced the highest of highs and lows that had me crumpling and wondering if I’d ever be upright again. In July, Frankie, my fourth granddaughter and fifth grandchild, arrived. Frankie entered the world, exploding my already full heart. The following month, my sister, Robin, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and a month later, my Dad died. My cousin, sensing the profound grief and sadness I was experiencing, told me to look for the sparkles every day, even when I didn’t believe they could show up. She guaranteed I’d find them. She spoke from experience.

During Dad’s short stay in hospice, I sat by his bedside for several hours on what would be his last day and let my mind weave its way through countless memories, evoking both tears and laughter. Because the hospice nurse told me Dad could hear me, even though he might not react, I shared my memories out loud. Dad’s hospice room became a confessional for this non-practicing, Presbyterian-raised girl. The door to Dad’s room was open, and during a quiet moment, a woman, whom I didn’t know, entered the room, walked over to me, and gave me a big hug. Again, I had no idea who the woman was, but I was comforted by her gesture. She told me she hoped it was Ok, and said, “I sat with my Dad a month ago, and I know the feeling. I recognized the look on your face when I walked by, and it looked like you needed a hug.” I thanked her, told her she was right, and then she was gone. It was all so fast that it took me a minute to absorb what had happened and the gift I had been given from a stranger…an unexpected sparkle.

Over the last several months, life has reminded me of what really matters, proving it to me over and over again.. On a day when thankfulness is the centerpiece of the holiday, I thought about the many people who have offered their support when I needed it the most. I’m thankful for the love my children have given me, and for showing me, through grief and sadness, that family and friends are what hold us together in life more than anything else. In our grief, we have found our strength, our resiliency, and, thank goodness, our humor. A comparison between poorly folded sheets in the linen closet and the flag the two soldiers ceremoniously folded at Dad’s military ceremony became necessary humor.

I’m thankful for the unexpected reminders or sparkles, that life really is short and that it’s worth doing whatever we can to make it sweet. During a time when life has felt painfully difficult and I’ve wondered what I could be thankful for, I’m finding my Thanksgiving sparkle.



                                     *****

Thanksgiving, 2025

Less than six weeks after I posted that essay, Emery would be gone. As this Thanksgiving approached, I thought about the words I’d write, and my first thought was to write nothing. How do I find my thankfulness in a year that started with such profound tragedy? Maybe I don’t need to be thankful, at least not this year. And yet…

I read my words from last Thanksgiving.

In the past several months, I’ve experienced the highest of highs and lows that had me crumpling and wondering if I’d ever be upright again.

I didn’t think I could feel worse. I had no idea. How could I know, while seated next to my daughter at her beautiful Thanksgiving table last year, that it would be the last time I’d share Thanksgiving with her? My daughter, the one who sat with me, called me daily and helped me stay upright during a time when all I wanted to do was crawl back into my bed and sleep through the pain, was gone. She had been teaching me a lesson I didn’t want to learn and became my soft spot to land. In the same calming voice I remember using with her when she was upset, she’d tell me in our daily phone calls,

“Put your hand over your heart, and breathe slowly. Inhale. Exhale. I’m with you, Mom.”

And as I did, she’d breathe with me on the phone. The foreshadowing haunts me, as breathing was what she struggled with in the final days before her death. Emery told me she’d be with me, and I wasn’t alone in my grief. And then she wasn’t, and I’m trying to hold onto every one of her words so they aren’t lost in the mire of where I live.

My grief, personified as a skinny woman wearing a Pink Floyd tee-shirt, named Wanda, will be seated next to me this Thanksgiving. She will remind me that she’s only there because love sent her, and also not to get carried away on the cranberries, because, according to Emery, no one likes the side dish. The small dish with the deep red berries will be my nod to the humor Emery and I shared and will grace the table of this Thanksgiving and every Thanksgiving to come.

Thanksgiving (and every day for that matter) is about finding gratitude; words that used to sound cliché to me, but at this time in my life, cliché has become the air that keeps me breathing.

It is the synchronicity of hearing one of Emery’s favorite songs in the most unlikely of places…a Native American singing Brown Eyed Girl in the Albuquerque airport. It is the many stories that will go untold by my Dad, always starting with, “Laur, did I ever tell you about the time, the person, the place….” And even if he had, I’d listen again and smile, because Dad always had one more story to tell. It is the quarter, found on the floor by my bed the morning of Emery’s celebration of life, with a 1990 date, the year Emery was born. I haven’t carried change in years.

It is the extraordinary, found in the ordinary, because Grief, in her oversized Pink Floyd tee-shirt, has taught me the beauty of slowing down. It is in those moments of stillness that the magic lies. And this Thanksgiving, and every day, including the ones I’m not thankful for, that is where my Dad and my Emery reside.

Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who reads these pages. I hope your day is filled with unexpected sparkles with people you love and cranberries that not everyone likes, but someone made because they love you.

Gratitude. Emery and her Gramps. My daughter and my Dad.

Mother’s Day, May 2025

Crested Butte, Colorado, my 60th birthday

I always think of you when I hear the Fleetwood Mac song Gypsy. For years, that song has reminded me of you, and I always picture you in your Alaska days. Tonight, during their show, for the first time I felt myself reflecting back on my pre-Arlo days, thinking like a gypsy in spirit. I kept thinking about how cool it would have been if you and I were able to meet when we were both in our young twenties. I think we would have been best friends. Thank you for gifting me with a part of your spiritual gypsy soul. Love you always! Emery December 3, 2018

Emery sent this email to me after a Fleetwood Mac concert, when she was living in Fort Collins and I was still in KC, but would be moving to Boulder the following summer. I liked to think about Emery and me as friends— going to concerts together and wearing vintage clothing with braids in our hair. I held her idea, knowing that someday we would go to a Fleetwood Mac concert and pretend to be in our early 20s, instead of a young mother and grandmother. Those words hold far more value for me today, as do the conversations, the photos, the experiences, and the plans that never came to fruition, because now they carry the weight of being finite entities.

This is not the typical beginning to a Mother’s Day post for me, with musings of pop tarts on make-shift trays and kids fighting over who gets to sit next to mom. Instead, I’ve been dreading this Mother’s Day. Emery, who is why I landed in Boulder, and was the one who ensured I was given a proper Mother’s Day celebration, is gone. I don’t know what to do with the day or myself, knowing that her plans for us to celebrate our roles as mamas will be painfully absent.

Last year on Mother’s Day, Emery and I celebrated our motherhood doing what we loved — we played in the dirt and planted three carloads of perennials in her front yard. Emery did what I never could on Mother’s Day. She told Miles she wanted to spend the day planting with me after our family brunch. It was her version of me wanting to go to the movies by myself for Mother’s Day, but unlike me, she asked for what she wanted and got it. Miles took the children fishing, and Emery and I rolled up our sleeves and dug in the dirt. We planted, we laughed, we told stories, and we cried, all with the beautiful music of Stephen Sanchez in the background. Emery preferred the wild, untamed, and overgrown look of an English garden, whereas I preferred the orderly and tidy look of a French garden. I told her we would know exactly who planted what in three years, as her area would be a tangled mess. She smiled at me and said, “I know, Mom…exactly like I like it.” I told her it would be fun to see the results of our plantings on the following Mother’s Day, when much of what we planted would be beginning to show blooms. She suggested we do the same thing the following Mother’s Day. I agreed. I loved the tradition we had set into motion.

We talked about travel plans — a trip to NYC, and when the children were at an age when she could leave them for a longer stretch, maybe Paris. She said she would visit me when I returned to the house I had rented on the Oregon Coast the following year, cloudy days and all and asked me where I wanted to celebrate my 70th birthday. Emery had planned my 50th and 60th birthday celebrations, so I knew my 70th would be no exception. The anticipation felt good. We had so much to look forward to. That ended on January 4th, at 11:38 am — a time on the clock and forever in my heart that marked my before and after. It became my line of demarcation between when my life was whole and when a big part was gone. It marks the time from when I looked forward to the trips and plans made, to not wanting to do anything. It is my before, when joy was present and my heart felt full, and now the after, when I can barely get out of bed in the morning, can’t sleep at night, and cry without reserve or explanation at inopportune times. It marks the time when I knew who I was, to the time when I have no idea who I am, or who I will become in my grief of missing my darling girl. It marks the time before, when I bought two Mother’s Day cards last year to be given on two consecutive Mother’s Days, because they were that good, to the time after, where there will always be an unsigned Mother’s Day card in the top drawer of my desk, because I bought it for Emery, and no one else.

Thomas and Grant, who I became a mother to before Emery was born, have mothered me since January 4th and the 48 hours that preceded that difficult day. They held me up, gave me their shoulders to cry into, came to me from another room when they heard me sobbing, and never once told me it would be ok, because we all knew it never would be. As we were leaving Emery’s hospital room the morning she died, Thomas said, “You can’t hold your sister’s hand while the machines that were keeping her alive are turned off and walk out of the room the same person.” He was so right. We are all changed, and our love of Emery and each other is holding us together. Through their love, I have found my respite and refuge and because they are a part of me, they are the ones who can help me carry the tremendous load of grief I have for the part of their life and mine that is missing. They have been by my side as we navigate this unfamiliar journey that often feels like an icy precipice with limited visibility on a knife-edge cliff. They have become my strength, my comfort, and the outstretched hands in person and words over the phone that have become my stability. They are my comfort. They are my world. They are my opening into the wisdom of how we will carry this grief and how to set it down, if only for a moment. They carry stories that only we know, that are now safeguarded for Emery and Miles’ children, Arlo and Muna. To Thomas and Grant, I’m honored that you call me Mom on this most difficult of Mothers’ Days and every day after. You hold my heart.

Emery’s Dad, Charlie, and I were with our girl for her first breath and also her last. We linked the circle of Emery’s being in the hospital room, overcrowded with machinery, anticipation, and hope, while time slipped and stalled and ended with a painful loss, whose depth we are still grappling with. And just as Thomas would later confirm, we filed out of her room, different from the people who had entered.

I’ve been going through the files on my computer titled Emery. In it are countless letters and essays I’ve written to or about Emery, along with emails from her. I found the words I wrote for her Celebration of Life, and next to that, a copy of her death certificate. That last entry makes it feel like the file had been closed, but it hasn’t. It can’t be closed just like I can’t tell people I have two children. I have three, two of them living. In rereading the essays and letters, there is a common thread of my difficulties in letting go that started with her going to kindergarten and ended with her getting married, and eventually, moving to Colorado. I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t know how. I learned the night after getting her settled in her dorm room at college, when she called and asked if I could return to college and be her roommate, she didn’t know how to let go either. I knew she was joking, but I also understood the sentiment behind her words. We missed each other when we weren’t physically close. One of the letters I found in the collection was one she wrote me for my 60th birthday. I stopped and started it several times as it was painful to read and decided to include part of it given that it’s Mother’s Day.

August 30, 2015 (from Emery)

“You taught me to always listen to my intuition and follow my heart. I’m so glad I listened to you because I wouldn’t be who I am today if it were not for you.

This is what I’ve learned about the heart and the mother and child’s bond:

When two people are near one another, their hearts’ electromagnetic fields synchronize. This synchronization is like a support system, one heart learning to beat with the other. The first begins in utero, when the mother’s and baby’s hearts synchronize. When you’re away from that person, your heart goes through a period where it has to focus on beating without the other heart, and it takes some time for your heart to get back to beating on its own in a normal fashion. This is the feeling of heartache or missing the person. It is real.

As two people who have spent so much time together, our hearts sigh with relief when we are together, Mom, because we are so familiar with each other. So, when I say I love you from the bottom of my heart, I really, really mean it. I love you so much, Mom. Emery”

You were right, my darling girl, the feeling of heartache is real. I wonder how much time it will be before my broken heart goes back to beating in the way it beat before January 4th at 11:38, if that will ever happen.

I’ve often spoken of the umbilical cord when writing about mothering, or the metaphorical cord after the physical one has been cut. I’ve referenced my umbilical cord stretching itself to three different parts of the country, where my three children lived. I don’t know how far Emery’s cord stretches now, but I know it’s still there. I can feel its tug when I see Muna’s big brown eyes and soft curls, so much like her Mama, or when Arlo leaned in at our birthday dinner, wanting me to tell him stories about his Mama. I will tell him all the stories I can remember, and story by story, word by word, he and Muna will have the tools to paint a picture of their Mama when she was a child. I feel the cord wrapping itself around my own heart, which is no longer intact, yet, the connections continue —a red-tailed hawk circling overhead, a quarter found on the floor next to my bed with 1990 on it, and a framed photo also near my bed that randomly fell over yesterday. Connections are different, but present.

I used to tell my kids that I would stand before a moving train if I had to to protect them. I spoke metaphorically, but the deeper I got into motherhood, the less metaphorical that statement became. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop that train on Jan 4th, Emery. I couldn’t even find the tracks, and as a mother, not being able to come to your rescue has been so painful that I sometimes struggle to find my breath.

My Mother’s Day post in 2017 was dedicated to Emery as she had just given birth to her son, Arlo, four days earlier, ironically, on my firstborn, Thomas’s, birthday.

It feel timely to include an excerpt from that post.

Mother’s Day, May 4th, 2017

I will always be your mother, and you will always be my daughter, but now we’re entering into a new place, given that we both are mothers now, and that in and of itself is just about the most beautiful and perfect thing I can think of on this very first Mother’s Day for you.

You will have days that you feel like you are swimming upstream in mud, and it will be hard to maneuver yourself out of the mire, but you’ll figure it out, and before you begin to slump into a human question mark, rest assured, dry land is never out of sight. You’ll stumble, you’ll fumble, you’ll eat a bag of chips with a salsa chaser for breakfast, and you’ll call pajamas clothes for more days than you care to admit, and to that I say “do it.” And do it repeatedly because you deserve every morsel of not-so-healthy and every hour of long past time to get out of your jammies. You’re a mama now. Claim that right with pride.

You grew up with a mom who often felt like that frazzled, wild-haired bus driver in the Magic School Bus series, which I greeted at the time with a sigh and a promise to myself to get it right the next time. Still, decades later and without apologies, I realize that the messy, the dirty, the not wearing the right shoes, or shoes at all, and letting go of a whole lot of shoulds and coulds, just might have been one of the best gifts I could give you. I can’t end this letter without a big shout-out to your partner in life and love, Miles. His hands-on fathering melts my heart. What a lucky baby Arlo is to have you both as parents.

From one mother to another, I wish you the best of everything and several consecutive hours of sleep this Mother’s Day, dear Emery. Only now that you are a Mom, can you begin to understand how much I love you. And I do. So much.

Still.

To all reading this, celebrate your role as a Mom, or celebrate your Mom today. It matters deeply.

Mother’s Day, 2012

Thanksgiving 2024

Life is short. Make it sweet. These words were printed on a wooden block that fell off a shelf and landed inches from my feet as I filled my coffee cup at McClain’s Bakery in Kansas City. I picked up the wooden block just as one of the employees came over with profuse apologies and returned the block to the shelf next to the coffee urns.

I took my coffee to a nearby table and opened my computer to work on some writing, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the falling block and its message. It felt like a tap on the shoulder that I couldn’t ignore. Life is short. Make it sweet. It also felt like something Dad would have noticed, possibly adding that he could have made a better block with letters carved instead of painted. It’s also possible that Dad was trying to bring those words to my attention with a block that was not precariously perched but fell anyway and landed at my feet. There have been so many incidents since Dad passed, starting with the red-tailed hawk, where his presence was undeniably felt. I’m counting the falling block as another one.

In the past several months, I’ve experienced the highest of highs and lows that had me crumpling and wondering if I’d ever be upright again. In July, my granddaughter, Frankie, entered the world, exploding my already full heart. The next month, my sister, Robin, was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and a month later, my dad died—a timeline of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. My cousin, sensing the profound grief and sadness I was experiencing, told me to look for the sparkles every day, especially now, as they will become more important than ever. I decided to follow her advice. During Dad’s short stay in hospice, I sat by his bedside for several hours and let my mind weave its way through countless memories, some bringing tears to my eyes and others a good laugh. Because the hospice nurse told me even though he might not react, he could hear me, so some of those memories I shared aloud with him. The door to Dad’s room was open, and during a quiet moment, a woman, who I didn’t know, came in, walked over to me, leaned down, and hugged me. I was surprised, confused, and comforted. She told me she hoped it was Ok, and I nodded, not knowing what to say; then she added, “I sat with my dad a month ago, and I know the feeling. I recognized the look on your face when I walked by, and it looked like you needed a hug.” I thanked her, told her she was right, and then she was gone. It was all so fast that it took me a minute to absorb what had happened and the gift I had been given from a complete stranger. Life is short. Make it sweet. I was grateful for my cousin’s reminder, and since then, not a day has gone by that I’ve not seen a sparkle. The block falling at my feet was an unexpected but very welcomed sparkle.

I’ve been through the lowest of lows these past few months, but it was in those lows that I’ve been reminded of what really matters, even though it was something I knew all along. Thanksgiving is about toasting and giving thanks at a beautiful table filled with platters of food and the cranberries I insist on bringing, even though my daughter tells me nobody likes cranberries. And just like last year, I will bring home an almost full dish of cranberries that I will eat for a few days and then throw away. Thankfulness is the incredible group of people from around the world who I met while at a writing retreat in Greece last July and who I now call my friends. Thankfulness was the birth of baby Frankie, who arrived days before I left for Greece and who became my priority when I got home, booking my flight to LA two days later to hold her in my arms. Thankfulness is the moment when I set down the burden of heavy anxiety I had been carrying with an exhale and a sigh of relief because the doctors said Robin’s bloodwork looked good and her cancer was asleep. Thankful is knowing Dad had an easy and peaceful passing, confirmed by the hospice nurse who, in her compassionate delivery, told me he had a perfect death — quick, painless, and peaceful.

I’m thankful for the love my kids have given me with their emotional and physical support and for showing me through grief and sadness that family and friends are what hold us together in life more than anything else. Family. Friends. Cousins. My Mom. We’ve all been holding each other up and, in doing so, have found our strength, our resiliency, and, thank goodness, our humor. A comparison between poorly folded sheets in the linen closet to the flag the two soldiers ceremoniously folded at Dad’s military ceremony was some of that necessary humor.

I’m thankful for unexpected reminders that life really is short and to make it sweet. In a time when life has felt so difficult and I wondered what I could find to be thankful for this year, I’ve come up with a list that holds more meaning and depth than most years, which I’m calling my Thanksgiving sparkle.

Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who reads these pages. I hope your day is filled with unexpected sparkles with people you love and cranberries that no one likes but someone made because they love you.

Evolving Christmases that still Sparkle

It wasn’t that long ago, at this time of year, a week before Christmas, I’d be deep into making check marks on lists and when I forgot my list, I’d make more lists. It was the one time of year that I welcomed chaos and felt like a well-oiled machine as I moved from one task to the next in anticipation of the magical few days that lay ahead. Since 1986, because I was the only one in the family with a child, an 8 month-old baby specifically, Mom said I needed to have Christmas at my house to make my life easier. I gladly accepted, relieved that I wouldn’t have to haul baby Thomas and the large pile of equipment that would accompany him. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Mom was handing over the role of hostess to me, a role I would hold for the next 32 years. Had I known what the passing of the gavel would mean to me over the next three decades, I would have been more gracious in my acceptance. Then again, maybe she didn’t realize it at the time that she was forever surrendering her role of hostess, although secretly, I think she was happy to pass it on and finally become the guest that got to relax, hold the baby and compliment the hostess.

I embraced the role — the schedule, the food (thank goodness for sister help on that one…), the decorating and the multiple trips to the store, the airport, the liquor store and the shopping mall, usually with babies, toddlers or children in tow. It exhausted me and energized me at the same time and I wouldn’t have changed or delegated one task or responsibility.

Our family did our big celebration and all of the present unwrapping on Christmas Eve. We changed this from Christmas Day when my kids brought home girlfriends and boyfriends that eventually became a part of our family and had other family traditions to take part in. With my kids no longer anticipating what Santa would bring them, it didn’t really matter if we opened our gifts on Christmas morning or Christmas Eve. Traditions are added, usually very organically without even knowing it and they are also let go of because they are outgrown. Arranging hand decorated cookies and carrots for the reindeer on a special plate for Santa that was only used on Christmas Eve was a part of our Christmas Eve ritual, then one year it didn’t happen. It just stopped and no one mentioned the tradition that became a bookend to starting the bedtime routine in anticipation of Santa’s arrival.

As the kids left home for college, the date for our family Thanksgiving also changed from the 3rd Thursday of the month to the 3rd Saturday. This was also a tradition that evolved after my kids began to have obligations at their boyfriend or girlfriend’s homes for the holiday. I decided that eating two meals on the actual day of Thanksgiving was a terrible idea and not fair for the hostess that got round two. My son Grant began referring to it as “Fakesgiving,” fake in the date, but traditional in every other aspect. Thanksgiving, or Fakesgiving, was also a holiday that both my Mom and my Mother-in-law graciously handed the hostessing duties to me not long after I inherited Christmas. I happily accepted and also realized that although I don’t consider myself to be a control freak, it appears that on Thanksgiving, I am. I like a specific way of preparing the turkey and its sides and prefer waiting until dark before sitting down to the meal. Tables simply look better under the glow of candles.

These are the times I look on with deep fondness and nostalgia. They are also the times that were sacrificed when I moved to Boulder and was no longer was the place where everyone gathered — the headquarters. Not everyone came back for Thanksgiving but they did for Christmas and until 2020, when none of us traveled and a lot of Christmas took place over FaceTime, my children and their partners, my siblings and my parents had all been together for the holiday and up until 2018, it was at my house. I knew I wouldn’t always be the hostess and my house the headquarters but couldn’t possibly anticipate what that would feel like until 2018, when we celebrated our first Christmas at Mom and Dad’s retirement center in one of the rooms they offer for gatherings. I was still living in Kansas City, but my sister, in anticipation of my move and my loss of the role of hostess, thought it would be a good idea to ease into our new reality gradually, suggesting that we celebrate at Mom and Dad’s place the Christmas before my move. It would be one less obstacle to maneuver in what would be a trying year of firsts after my move. She was right and although at the time I didn’t think so, a year later, when I was living in Boulder, I was grateful for one less new tradition to experience when everything at that point was new to me. We brought the food, the wine and the laughter and had a great time as we were all together and that’s all that mattered, or so I kept telling myself, but it was hard. It was hard not having it be in my house with candles lit, greenery hung and lights twinkling. It was easier and far more practical given that Mom and Dad lived 40 minutes away and no longer drove at night, which meant someone would have to put down the wine glass early on in the evening to be available to take them home. I knew that in my head, but in my heart I missed sitting in my living room with chairs pulled out of the dining room and squeezed into any place there was room. I can take myself back to a specific moment, right down to the smell of our traditional Christmas Eve meal of lasagne still lingering in the air, and random notes of Celine Dion periodically audible over the sounds of conversation taking place, punctuated with laughter. I’m sitting on the couch with a sister on one side of me and one of my kids on the other, taking turns leaning into them and absorbing the moment. The love in the air so thick that nothing else really mattered. It was my favorite night of the year.

The chaos of Christmas. The noise. The laughter. The traditions. The taking turns reading the poem on the gift that the giver would attach — a tradition that started with my Grandpa and has been happily carried on throughout the generations. It started with my Grandpa as a few lines that would give a hint as to what the gift was but has evolved throughout the years. When my kids first started writing poems, they were in grade school and by the time they were in high school and college, some of the poems were several stanzas long and the delivery often topped the contents of what was under the wrapping paper. That, along with the “pie gifts” are traditions that have held strong for four generations in my family. The pie gift originated with my Grandma (wife of the one who started the poem tradition) who would select small gifts for everyone at the Christmas dining table and wrap them in white tissue with a long ribbon that reached each individual plate. We’d all pull our ribbons to collect the gift and would unwrap them before the meal began. That tradition evolved into drawing names for the gifts so the hostess (me) wouldn’t have to buy over a dozen small gifts. Over the years, poems were added to the pie gifts, something that new members to the family either embraced or dreaded. I remember watching my father-in-law, usually a very soft spoken man and more of an observer than a participant, beam with pride when his two page, very eloquently written poem, was being read. I think it became his favorite part of our Christmas celebration. We still do the gift exchange although it has evolved into a Yankee swap stealing game, and a few have given up on the poem writing.

Christmas has changed because life has changed. We have been blessed in my family of birth to still have our original six, so the grief in feeling the loss I’m experiencing in the natural evolution of change, pales compared to the loss that most of my peers have experienced at this phase of life.

Just as my mom did over almost 40 years ago, I have begun the process of handing over my role as hostess, although not completely. Last night I hosted my Boulder family for dinner and our Christmas celebration. It was wonderful, and thoughtful and shimmering in the glow of candlelight and Christmas lights. There wasn’t the amount of chaos we had had the previous two years because my son and his wife and their two young daughters now live in Portland. Their absence and was felt, especially knowing they won’t be back to Kansas City this Christmas. Thankfully, my other son, and his wife, who I haven’t seen since August, will be. I’m learning, still, at age 68, to be grateful for what is present and not what’s missing, but I’m human and a mom and it’s the season of Christmas, which makes all the emotions feel like they’re written in bold font.

In the midst of watching my 6 year-old grandson and 4 year-old granddaughter open their gifts, I was able to pause and absorb the moment while feeling the familiar thread that began over 35 years ago — the strong thread of love, whether it’s sixteen or more people seated at two dining tables and gathering in the living room afterwards, the first to the room getting dibs on the comfortable furniture, or five people at the table with a seat for everyone in the living room. It’s the same pull of love that was still present in the room last night long after the gifts had been opened and the hugs and goodbyes exchanged. Celine Dion was still providing background music because oh I do love you at Christmas, Celine, and the wax was still soft from the candles that my granddaughter, Muna, was chomping at the bit to blow out most of the night because blowing out candles to her means making a wish. I’m guessing she is still wishing for a unicorn to ride to school. Keep blowing out those candles, Muna and I’ll keep lighting them for you.

Change is hard, no matter how it’s presented, even wrapped up in Christmas paper with a poem attached. Last night I decided to set the mourning aside for what had been and what I missed and the beautiful chaos that permeated my life every day for at least 2 weeks a year, and embrace what was, because at that very moment, it was all that mattered. As I reached down to get a ribbon from under the coffee table that had been missed in the clean up, I couldn’t help but notice the sparkle of my new sequin-covered slipper socks that Muna gave me for Christmas. My feet are either barefoot or in well-loved shearling scuffs, so the iridescent sparkles on my feet looked unfamiliar and very fancy! Change. Embrace it. Adapt it. Keep walking around in it until it feels natural and comfortable. Wear the sequins instead of well worn slippers because I think my granddaughter wants me to be fancier. Next week some of my family will celebrate Christmas with Mom and Dad at the retirement home where they live. We won’t have lasagne, or people gathered in two different rooms at two different tables, both decorated in holiday plaids accented with votive candles and greenery and Celine won’t be singing in the background. What will be present will be the very familiar thread of love, still be encircling us we do our gift exchange, some with poems and others with excuses. It’s not the same, but neither are we. We’ve aged, we’ve moved, we’ve become parents, we’ve become grandparents and great grandparents and some of us have even gotten fancy and now wear sequined slippers and that’s what I’m choosing to embrace this Christmas. Change, but with the same energy that is still the first thing that is felt in the room….love.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas filled with love, new memories and maybe something fancy.

My new sparkly side.

Two of my many gifts this Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2023

The “gang” less Ned, who is always the photographer.

Thankfulness. Today’s the day. I spend time every day with lists in a gratitude journal, but today is the day we get serious with those lists — the equivalent of getting out the yellow highlighter and saying it out loud. I was driving back to Boulder from Kansas City after celebrating my Mom’s 90th birthday, so had nine hours to ponder. My thankfulness list felt particularly long this year, even though it’s not been an easy year for me. As I mentally recapped my time in Kansas City with family, I wondered how many of my friends still have both of their parents? I could count them on one hand, minus the thumb and index finger. My sisters and brother and I arranged for a family dinner in the private dining room where Mom and Dad live. Mom chose a Thanksgiving dinner theme, which surprised me at first given all the choices, but when she explained why, it made sense. Our entire family has not been together for Thanksgiving since I was in college. Since my early 20’s, I always had at least one sibling living out of state and given that they always came home for Christmas, Thanksgiving became the holiday that was missed. I’m seeing the same pattern continue with 2/3 of my own children who live on the west coast. As I sat at that table celebrating Mom’s 90th, I thought about what an honor it is to be able to celebrate a parent entering their 9th decade. Four months earlier, I was in town lighting candles on a birthday cake and pouring glasses of champagne as we celebrated Dad’s 95th birthday. My family is truly blessed. Mom’s parents died in their mid 60’s and Dad’s in their late 70’s and early 80’s. They’ve created a new longevity thread in the family that I’m happy to weave my own life span into.

My knee. When thinking about it before surgery, gratitude certainly wouldn’t have been a word that I would have used. Instead, it was something I wanted to get through, passed, beyond and over with. I marked the day on the calendar when I’d be able to fly again and started making plans for when I’d get my life back, starting with my 50th class reunion at week 8. I didn’t give a thought to the lessons, the realizations and the gift that the process that began several months before the surgery, would bring. My doctor told me to get as healthy and strong as I could beforehand, and so I did. Anyone who knows me, knows that I will take a challenge to the inth degree, to prove something to myself more than anyone else. For three months, I directed my daily efforts on just that. Obsessed is a word that comes to mind, but the obsession paid off with a relatively easy and faster than expected, recovery. Since my surgery, my doctor has asked if it would be OK for him to give patients my name to call me before their upcoming knee replacement surgeries. I’m on my 3rd “patient consulting.” One more, and I’m going to have to send him a bill. Going through such a big physical and emotional process became far more than replacing an old knee with a new one. My new knee, which I named Rhoda, became the lens into parts of myself I hadn’t seen in a very long time and for some aspects, never. I was able to find my vulnerability, my strength, my compassion (for myself) and my words to document the process. My sisters came for the first week, a gift that I’ll always be grateful for, but once they left, I had a lot of time on my couch alone. My daughter would come by daily, but the nights were long, sleeping on my couch, still not ready to tackle the 18 steps to my bedroom. I would have never predicted it, but I have good memories of those evenings. I allowed myself to go deep and feel it all. I cried. I wrote. I planned and I made daily lists in my gratitude journal. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was creating my own retreat and it felt good. I also reconnected with a high school friend who was two weeks behind me on her knee replacement. It was such a gift to be able to message back and forth with someone who knew exactly what I was feeling, both physically and emotionally. And I healed. I had to cancel a volunteer trip to Tanzania and a sister trip around Colorado that had to be changed to a post op week of care for me. But I’m still calling it a journey of growth and one I’m so grateful to be on. If you saw me walk across a room or go down stairs now, you’d never know I had a knee replacement 2 1/2 months ago, but I know it because it still feels strange. Not painful, but strange.

Yesterday I joined my friends on a 4.5 mile hike that is relatively flat, although the first half of the hike is spent pacing precariously around large rocks. While walking the rocky path, being very mindful, I heard my doctor’s words “don’t fall, you’ll mess your knee up and I’ll have to go in and fix it, which you won’t like…” over and over again. In the beginning, I felt like a 90 year-old woman (no offense, Mom, maybe I should say 91…), in high heels, on ice, mindful of every step. After a short while, Dr. Bowman’s words faded and I felt like my old self again, weaving in and out of the rocks in search of the dirt. I was back. I was back with the group of friends who I first met when I came to Boulder. The friends who became my tribe and made me feel connected to the town where I had moved not knowing a soul short of my daughter, my son-in-law and my two year old grandson. The sky was Colorado blue, the weather was in the 60’s and I was weaving my way in and out of conversations with everyone in the group. I was back and although not with the strength yet to tackle hikes with much elevation, being back was enough. Thankfulness. It’s an adverb, it’s a noun and today it was a verb — walking towards the flatirons in Boulder, Colorado with a group of people who I feel connected to.

Later today, I’ll have Thanksgiving dinner with my daughter and her family. I’ll miss my west coast kids but it gives me peace to know that they also will spend some time today in gratitude for their family. As the hostess for Thanksgiving for my family of origin and my children for many years, I’d always stress the importance of the “thankfulness” part of the holiday, with the never changing menu coming in second. I tried many different approaches including 3 x 5 cards that everyone wrote what they were thankful for on the cards then the cards were placed in the center of the table and read throughout the meal. No names were on the cards so we also had to guess who wrote them. We’re family. That part was easy. In all the things that were sold, given away or thrown away before my move to Boulder, somehow those cards made the journey. I found a stack of them the other day and will wrap up my thoughts on thankfulness by sharing:

I’m thankful that we’re all sitting at this table together.
I’m thankful for pumpkin pie.
I’m thankful for Grandma and Grandpa.
I’m thankful the Chiefs are playing later today.
I’m thankful for my health and every person at this table.
I’m thankful that I don’t have to do the dishes afterwards. (I’m still puzzled by that one, because no one got a pass on clean up…)
I’m thankful that Mom cooked such a nice meal. (I moved that one to the top of the stack).

And Christmas wasn’t ruined…

I have a strange perfectionist tendency that says if I do something once and succeed with it, then it has to be done the next time and every single time after that, until the end of time. In this case, I’m talking about traditions, more specifically, Christmas traditions. For starters, I’m a Virgo, and this is simply what Virgos do, but I’m also from a family that holds onto traditions, close and tightly, and next to their hearts, especially when it comes to Christmas. At age 59, I know I’m in a tiny minority of people who can say that they have spent every Christmas of their life with their entire family. Every. Single. One. My parents, my siblings, my siblings’ spouses, my own kids, and now their significant others, all come together for a few days that hold the same kind of magic that it did when I was a small child. We do Christmas well, and because of that, I’ve always been a tiny bit afraid to make any changes to the many traditions that have made their way through the generations.

There was a point a few years ago when I realized I was doing a whole lot of things simply because I had always done them, and while the end was accomplished, the process suffered as I trudged through tasks I didn’t really enjoy. Baking, cutting out, and icing cookies was my first tradition to hit the dust, and lo and behold, Christmas was not ruined. It almost pains me to admit it, but I do not enjoy baking, and whether it’s Christmas cookies or birthday cakes, I fail miserably at it, probably because I don’t enjoy it. I will knit Christmas stockings with names and designs knitted right in and load up mantles with nature’s bounty until the cows come home, but I will leave the baking to someone else. I’m throwing in the towel and the cookie sheets and am calling myself done. And finally, I can say it’s OK.
Our family tradition of putting a handwritten poem on every one of our gifts that gives a hint of the contents inside has made its way through 4 generations unscathed, as has our tradition of “pie presents,” which are small gifts placed on everyone’s plate for Christmas dinner. Both traditions remain strong while evolving to suit an expanding, maturing audience. The poems have become every comic in the family’s moment of fame when it’s read (which is everyone, by the way), and the pie gifts have transformed into a pre-Christmas Yankee swap, with a whole lot of trying to outdo the next guy taking place. Both have survived the holiday cuts because they are something we all enjoy. Baking for me, not so much. Writing Christmas cards, which I sadly gave up a few years ago because of time constraints, has also been dropped and not picked up again… at least not yet. And still, Christmas was not ruined.

The traditions give us a sense of history and are carried on until they become cumbersome; then, hopefully, we have the presence of mind to let them go. Poems that started with a couple of lines that my young children would scribble onto a sheet of paper have grown into witty works of art, many of which I’ve saved over the years. Give up the cookies, the cards, and even the outdoor lights, if you will, but please, oh please, save the poems, my children. You will be the carriers to the next generation.

While some traditions are held tight, and others are let go of, what really matters and what has become the biggest tradition of all isn’t wrapped up or baked or sent in the mail, but rather is the gift of a family coming together, once again, for a few days of magic. It’s the gift that is wrapped up in memories and continually given and received with open arms and hearts and topped with a handwritten poem that speaks of love and family and Christmas magic. THIS is the tradition that I have no doubt will be carried safely in the hearts of the generations to come.
Wish all my family and friends a very Merry Christmas!

Feeling just a little more grateful this Thanksgiving…

My field of gratitude stretched just a bit further than usual this Thanksgiving season, to the North African country of Morocco, specifically. As much as I like to think that I’m helping to better someone’s life when volunteering, if only a few moments at a time, the reality is that the people who I am supposedly helping, whether that means teaching English to or simply being attentive and loving to a child at the orphanage, give me far more than I could ever give them. The gift of gratitude is the gift I take away—the greatest gift of all.

There were so many reminders of gratitude during my stay in Rabat, but two in particular that I can’t seem to let go of. The first one was during my trip to Fes. I met a fascinating young man while on the train and had the opportunity to chat with him during the entire 3-hour journey. He was 23, from Georgia, and was attending school in Rabat, working on his master’s degree in Middle Eastern politics. He spoke several languages fluently but apologized for his poor French, which was hardly an apology to this barely bilingual person. His stories were more like a history lesson to me, and I was amazed by his knowledge of American history, which put my own knowledge to shame. One of his stories that particularly touched me was about his memories of 9/11. He said he was in the 3rd grade, and he remembers watching the videos of the planes going into the towers and how afraid his parents were, even for their own safety. I certainly could understand the fear, yet, half a world away, I assumed they would feel more isolated and somewhat protected. His response I will not soon forget.

“America was the last safe place in the world, and now it wasn’t. The whole world was afraid.”
I’m thankful that David happened to claim the seat right across from me on the train that morning, even though my first thought was that he wouldn’t be someone who wanted to talk, since I tried to sleep. His words and his reminder that the world is far bigger than our U.S. borders made a massive impact on me that I won’t soon forget.

The second reminder I got was something that Mohamed told us during one of our first lessons on Moroccan culture. He told us to never lose sight of the gift we have, simply by the name of the country that is imprinted on our passports, as it puts us ahead of most of the world. Our passports are worth far more than we realize. It is so easy to forget this, especially during a time of such political turmoil in our country. It’s a complex, time-consuming, and expensive process for a Moroccan to obtain a tourist visa for the United States, and the chances of being selected through the lottery system are slim. I had a couple of women in my class who were perfecting their English in hopes of visiting children and grandchildren in the United States. I was so sad when Mohamed told me that their chances of visiting the United States were very slim, yet they continued to plug away at their English lessons, their energy fueled by such a tiny thread of hope.

So underneath my table of abundance this year at Thanksgiving will be the faces from Morocco – a girl at the orphanage reaching her hand out to me through the bars of her crib, a young man on a train who opened my eyes to a reality a world away from mine and to the dark blue booklet that I guard with my life when I travel outside of my country’s borders that says, “United States of America.”

Yesterday, while finishing up my unpacking, I picked up one of my shirts, was drawn to its smell, and couldn’t figure out why it felt so familiar. Then it hit me—the orphanage. I had gotten clean clothes from the laundry before I left Rabat, and they must use the same soap that they use to launder the children’s clothes at the orphanage. Now that I know, I find myself burying my face into a memory to ensure that it won’t be lost. I’m not quite ready to let go. I know that as life goes on and memories start to fade a bit, a thread of connection to Morocco will remain and, no doubt, will present itself to me when I become too complacent with what I have. But for now, with my Moroccan memory still vibrant and with its scent still in my clothes, I will go deeper into my list of what I have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. The stories, the people, and a hand reaching out to me to communicate as she had no words, for starters…

To all my friends and family, I am thankful, over and over again, to have you in my life.