Holidays – I-70 WEST AND BEYOND

Mother’s Day, Again. 2026

Mother’s Day, 1992

Santa Barbara, March, 2023

Mother’s Day. My second without Emery. The essays of memories of Pop-Tarts and a half-filled glass of juice, being carried by three young children on makeshift trays to my bed, feel like a lifetime ago. My words have changed. I have changed. The holiday has become a reminder of what I have lost, what I long for, and what I’ll never have again. Memories of sticky hands and excited children pushing their way to my bedside to be the first to wish me a happy Mother’s Day have been set aside. For now. Maybe forever. I don’t know.

When Emery died, Thomas and Grant not only lost their sister, but they also lost a big part of their mom. That breaks my heart for them and for me. I wasn’t able to save my daughter, and I wasn’t able to support my sons when they needed me the most. Instead, our roles reversed, and my sons were the ones who held me up, comforted me, and took care of me. I became their mother who needed mothering, and they stepped into the role with love and grace.

Sunday, May 3rd, was International Bereaved Mothers’ Day, a day dedicated to Mothers who carry the profound loss of a child. I didn’t know there was such a day, but my social media page told me, since they’re filled with grief due to my changed algorithm. A day to recognize bereaved mothers gives me both comfort in its existence and heartbreak that there are mothers who find themselves a part of the group being acknowledged. Myself, sadly included. I did not acknowledge the holiday, nor did I share it with anyone, and I did not do anything I don’t do every day, holiday or not. Remember. Cry. Grieve. I also learned, ironically on Bereaved Mother’s Day, that the word, viloma, is a Sanskrit term meaning against the natural order. It is also a word used to describe a parent whose child has died.

Against the natural order…words that hold their weight.

On the heels of Mother’s Day, my mind goes to my last Mother’s Day with Emery in 2024, when we spent the day planting flowers in the newly tilled gardens in her front yard. Her preference was a wild, tangled, over-planted garden, like an English garden, and mine was a more orderly one with plenty of room for each plant to eventually grow into its space, like a French garden. Her family no longer lives in that house, having moved to Costa Rica last August, and the house will soon be sold. A different family will live there someday, and I hope they will wander the gardens with appreciation for the flowers Emery and I so lovingly planted. I wonder if they will think about the people who planted them. The plantings will be in the third year of their growth cycle, the “leap” year, and will show that one area was planted too close together and will need to be thinned, and the other, just right. Will they notice that? I wonder if they like iris? Especially the purple bearded ones. I hope so. Not being able to walk through the gardens in memory when the house is sold will be another ending – the loss of a space that has given me comfort and offers a closeness to Emery amongst the flowers. I’ve gone over to that house multiple times since Emery died to find comfort. To find Emery, who should be walking out to my car with Arlo and Muna tagging behind. Like every other time, no one meets my car. Wanda, my grief, sits shotgun, while I wait, even though I know that no one will come out of the house.

Mother’s Day feels less about my role as a mother this year and more about the children I mothered. I am the mother of three children, two of them living. Those are still difficult words to say. Often, when making small talk with someone I will never see again, I say “three” when asked about my children. Three, without qualifiers. It’s easier and spares the questioner a difficult story.

Over the past 16 months, I’ve been mothered by my two sons and two daughters-in-law far more than I’ve mothered them. All four have comforted me, listened to me, and cried with me. They were by my side continually in the early days, not wanting to leave me alone, and even though they are on the West Coast and I’m in Colorado, they are still by my side emotionally.

Several weeks after Emery’s death, I sent Thomas and Grant a book with daily affirmations related to grief. A friend sent me the book after Emery died, and it continues to give me comfort. When I took the books into the Pak Mail, the lights began to flutter, although the TV behind the counter remained on. This continued until the books were packaged and put into the bin for mailing. The woman behind the counter told me she had never seen anything like that before and had no idea what was going on. I didn’t tell her, but I knew. Once I was out of the office, I quietly thanked Emery and told her, Yes, I will take care of your brothers, and they are taking care of me.

From the letter I included with the books:

Dear Thomas and Grant,

In all my profound grief of losing Emery, I’ve not forgotten that you also lost your sister, and that hurts my heart deeply. We will forever be on this path, laid with stones of grief, trying to find our way. Some days, we will proceed with familiarity and ease, while others will feel more like traversing an icy path with steep precipices and limited visibility. We didn’t choose this path; we’ve been forced to navigate with tired bodies and broken hearts, yet there are no two souls in the world I’d rather be traveling with than you two. You are my strength, my comfort, and my light in what feels like a very dark cave I’m living in now. I hope that someday, the pain will become more familiar and maybe more comfortable, not because we have become used to its presence but because the edges of sadness will be softened by memories, photos, music, words, and a spiral of sunflowers with their oversized heads looking towards the sun, because Emery loved sunflowers. We can no longer experience her in the physical realm, so we will continue searching for her in the things she loved.

Thomas and Grant, you are my north star. That north star led us to the rental house we shared for 3 weeks after Emery died, where our non-Jewish family sat shiva for 21 days. We were together, and together became our home.

As your mom, I vividly remember two little boys who greeted me at the door, anxious to welcome their new baby sister, and your excitement when Thomas asked me if Emery could stay with us forever, and I said yes. Our forever just wasn’t long enough. As your mom, who could fix most hurts when you were young, I wasn’t able to make it better this time, because there is no better when the worst thing we could have imagined happened, and in the span of four very short and very long days.

Thank you for taking care of me. For listening to me, crying with me, sitting with me, and helping me to a couch where I curled into the fetal position after we heard that Emery’s brain was no longer functioning. You were there for me during the most difficult days of my life, a touchstone in my memories that I continually lean into for comfort. A hole was ripped into the weave of our family on January 4th, 2025, that changed the very essence of who we are today and who we are becoming. As horrific as it was to experience such a profound loss, it has become our teacher as we learn to go more slowly, be softer, and always lead with kindness. We learned that grief is the shadow that follows quietly behind love, and one never exists without the other.

As C.S. Lewis so eloquently wrote, and the words I quoted so often as we waited with hope and prayers in the hospital waiting room, “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.”

It feels like this Mother’s Day, our second without Emery, belongs to you, Thomas and Grant, for mothering your mother when she couldn’t do it herself. Thank you, again and again, for holding my hand while we navigate this capricious path with hearts that are both full and broken. As your mom, who would do anything to spare you from pain, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you this time.

I love you dearly. Forever and for always, and I’m honored to be the one you call Mom.

April 30th

Emery and Arlo Thomas and Arlo

I knew long before she told me. I was visiting my sister in Massachusetts when I had the dream. The next morning over coffee, I told her that Emery was pregnant.

“Did she call you? I didn’t hear you talking on the phone.”
“No. I dreamt it.”
“Well, then you don’t really know she’s pregnant.”
“No, I do. I’m 100% sure.”
“Ok. Well, let me know when Emery tells you.”

The dream stayed with me long after I woke up. Emery and I were somewhere with a lot of people, maybe a party, and she pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, “I’m pregnant, Mom. Your baby is going to have a baby.”

I woke up knowing she was pregnant, but would have to wait for her to tell me.

When I returned to Kansas City, I went to dinner with a dear friend, and while seated on the patio of a tapas restaurant, she told me her daughter was pregnant. I told her Emery was also pregnant, and before any other details were shared, we clinked our glasses, hugged, and made the joyous screeches girls make when excited.
“When is she due?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.”
“When did she tell you she was pregnant?”
“Well, she hasn’t. But I know she is. I dreamt it.”
There was a long pregnant pause, pun intended.
“Well, then it’s kind of a ‘pretend pregnancy’…I mean, it was a dream…”
“It was real. I’ll let you know when I have a date.”

I knew it all sounded strange, my certainty coming from a dream, but I knew in my soul of souls that Emery was pregnant, and she wasn’t going to tell me until she could do it in person. The following week, she was flying into Kansas City for an event. She lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, and I was in Kansas City, so her trips home and the airport pickups were always special to me, this one even more so.

As soon as she came through the gate, Emery rushed over to me and said, “Mom….” The word Mom was said with two syllables and a rising intonation, her way of indicating she was about to say something important to me. Before she could go any further, I looked at her and said, “I know.” She shook her head, made an exaggerated exhale, and said, “I should have known. Of course, you already know.”

“But you can still tell me.” She smiled and said, “Mom, guess what? I’m pregnant!”
It was so much better hearing her tell me in person than in my dream.
“How did you know?”
“I dreamt it.”
“Of course you did. I never can have a secret with you.”

And that is how I learned of my daughter’s pregnancy with my first grandchild.

Arlo John Golson was born at 10:51 pm on April 30th, 2017. The first thing I said to Emery was how special it was that Arlo was born on his Uncle Thomas’s birthday. She looked at me and said, “Yes, but Mom…we both had our first babies on the same day, and they were boys.” Although we were both saying the same thing, the way she saw the date had much deeper meaning to me. My third child, my only girl, and I had our first babies on the same day… April 30, and they were both boys. It felt magical. All of it. From the way I found out about the pregnancy in a dream to the date we both shared as our first.

This year, on April 30th, Arlo will be 9, and Thomas will be 40. It will be another difficult date in the long line-up, and I’m learning that it doesn’t get easier because the year of firsts is over. This will be Arlo’s second year without his Mama. Emery won’t be with him to celebrate his birthday or her brother’s entrance into a new decade. Maybe she would have come to Portland for Thomas’s birthday, bringing Arlo with her, and the two would celebrate together. Maybe.

I pulled the following words from a Mother’s Day essay I wrote shortly after Arlo was born. I’ve rewritten these words often, and although I could rearrange them and write something new, nine years later, they still convey what I’m feeling today, so I’ll use them once again.

I can tell you a whole lot of things that will likely happen to you as a new mom, because they are somewhat universal, but you will come up with your own list. Tears will flow, for no reason, and you will have a tough time holding them in. That tear valve opens shortly after you give birth, and I’m sorry to say, sweetheart, but it will never close again. That’s OK, because in its opening, you can feel life and love more deeply than you ever imagined, and that is worth every tear. You will wake up more often than the baby during your first several days at home, and will check to make sure he is still breathing, and you will feel relief when you feel his warm, gentle breath on your hand. You will feel like a part of you is missing if he is not tucked securely in your arms, and that, my dear new mama/daughter, is exactly what being a mom feels like. Whether your baby is still nestled in your arms or 857 miles away, you will always remember the feeling of when you first held him, how whole and complete and absolutely perfect that moment was.

My son, Thomas, is 40 today. Emery’s son, Arlo, is 9 today. There will be a hole, a missing, a longing, in both of their celebrations.

Happy birthday, Thomas. Happy birthday, Arlo. I love you dearly.

The empty chair.

We had just been seated, deciding what was what in the stack of small, folded menus on the table, when Thomas said, “When we are out together, the three of us, there will always be an empty chair.”

I was in a restaurant with my two sons the night before Thanksgiving at a restaurant in Portland, where my daughter-in-law had snagged a hard-to-get reservation. Over the past several months, I had been at many tables in restaurants in many different cities with Thomas and Grant, but had never noticed the empty chair. Thomas’s words hit me hard in their reality, but he was right. When the three of us are together, there will always be an empty seat because tables are two-, four-, or six-tops, but never three-tops. The reminder of Emery’s absence is continual and shows up in places I never would have thought of before.

I sat down with my family for every dinner while we all stayed at the rental house in Boulder after Emery’s death. I remember during one of the first dinners, it didn’t seem like there were enough of us at the table. I had a sense of needing to wait because we weren’t all there. The one who showed up in the memorable outfit, whose small hands wore the biggest rings, who would have special teas for all of us after the meals, that she had blended to help with digestion, wasn’t there. There wasn’t an empty chair at that round table, but the emptiness was profound. I didn’t understand then that that feeling of someone missing would weave its way in and out of everyday. It’s a sensation of deep longing and searching, even though I know the reality.

The last time I had been out to dinner with all three of my children was on September 8th, 2024, the day after my Dad died, and they had flown into Kansas City from three different states We went to a nearby restaurant and were seated at a four-top table that evening. There was no empty chair. As my tears flowed with my accounts of my Dad and their grandpas’s last days, Thomas and Grant, who were seated across from me, would reach out and take my hand or my arm, and Emery, who was seated next to me, would lean in to hug me. We were whole. The seats were filled, and we supported each other in our grief. The empty chair now stands in the starkness of loss. I thought about how different it was, just the three of us in the restaurant in Portland, holding each other up emotionally because our fourth is missing. We will always be navigating the space we live in without Emery, moving on instinct, as there is no script or map for the journey we are on.

It’s a slow drip when someone dies, and reminders are ever-present. My phone auto-corrects morning to mourning. My favorites still appear on the screen in my car when I make a call. Two of the phone numbers are no longer in service, the oldest ones and the youngest: Dad and Emery. I can’t bear to remove them. I’ve been asked multiple times while at doctor appointments, “Is Emery Golson still your emergency contact?” In the early days, I simply answered yes, as no felt like too big an answer. My saying yes is now on a case-by-case basis, depending on my emotional strength that day. Sometimes, the efficiency of the person behind the desk who deletes Emery Golson and enters another name feels too insensitive, even though I haven’t told them why, and they are simply doing their job. I randomly get emails to my email address that begin with “Dear Emery.” They are junk emails, soliciting money, but I can’t bear to unsubscribe from them. I’m afraid to delete anything with Emery’s name on it. I’m holding onto every piece, every shred, every fiber of her that I can.

Empty has shown itself in so many ways this past year, besides the chair. Shortly before Mother’s Day, I told one of my sons that I was no longer a mother in Boulder, so it would be difficult to spend the holiday there. They told me that wasn’t at all true, as I was a mother everywhere. I knew they were right, but in the physical sense, I was not a mother to anyone in the town where I live. It felt similar to being asked how many children I have. I’ve never hesitated with the three, but don’t always share more unless asked; when I do, it’s still three, but I have to add that one is no longer living. It’s a hard sentence to say and a hard one to hear.

Experience has shown me the consequential difference between using adjectives and verbs with my daughter. Death as an adjective feels too final, too abrupt. “Emery is dead.” The verb “Emery died” is softer, gentler. It is what she did, and not who she is or became, and although it’s only semantics, the difference matters greatly to me.

In the early days after Emery died, Grant told me he often misspelled ‘siblings’ when writing emails to Emery and Thomas. He said that Thomas would correct him, reminding him that ‘siblings’ had one b, not two, but for some reason, he couldn’t remember. He told me he had recently written an email mentioning his siblings, and this time he paused over the word, remembering that ‘siblings’ has only one b. He told me it would be easier to remember now, since he had only one sibling. That hit me in the same way the empty chair would months later. One sibling, one empty chair. The void of that empty space is far larger than the chair or letting go of the extra b in siblings. It’s love. It’s remembering. It’s about making a shift in everything we know and finding Emery’s presence so profoundly in her absence.

A few days after Emery died, the family gathered at Miles’s house to celebrate his birthday. I hadn’t been in the house since the night Emery was taken to the hospital. As I opened the back door, the emotions of the night and seeing the EMTs carry her down the stairs on a stretcher felt like I was living the moment all over again. I had been worried about seeing her shoes at the door because Emery’s shoes were always at the back door, as they didn’t wear shoes in their home. Shoes hold an emotional weight and vulnerability, amplified after death. I knew that seeing Emery’s shoes at the door would no longer be about a momentary pause, but instead, would represent a journey that had ended; treads that would no longer move across the ground with her energy.

Thankfully, Miles had moved Emery’s shoes, but in their absence, I wondered where they were and felt an overpowering need to see them, to try them on, even though her feet were one size smaller than mine. This would become a pattern for me that still exists a year later. I don’t avoid the pain or ignore it; I want to sit with it, put it on, walk in it. Her cowboy hat, however, still hung above where her shoes would have been. I touched the rim as I walked past it, but resisted putting it on my head.

Ten months later, I’d be in Portland for the 3rd or 4th time in a year. It was the day after my dinner out with my sons, and we were all seated around the table for Thanksgiving dinner. There was no empty chair, but there was an empty spot at the end of the table directly across from where I was seated. I acknowledged the spot as we went around the table, one by one, and shared what we were thankful for, a hard task in a year that has been so painful. And yet, there seemed to be more gratitude at that table than I remember in past years. We all felt Emery’s energy at the table, shifting our emotions from grief to gratitude, from sadness to love. I’ve slowly begun to reframe the empty chair. There may be a physical vacancy, but love and gratitude have filled in the space emotionally, and I’ve become acutely aware of Emery’s presence in her absence.

Christmas anticipation…

Dad, holding court with the family on Christmas, as Dad so often did, 2023

Emery and Thomas, Christmas, 2024

My thoughts on Christmas this year are to get through it. Get through the holiday that I usually look forward to, starting on the day after Thanksgiving, when I haul the red and green boxes in from the garage while trying to remember what goes where. There is always a sense of relief when the empty ornament and decor boxes are back in the garage, the task completed, and for the next month or so, my house is transformed. The joy. A dark room at night with a lit tree. I love Christmas and have decorated for the holiday since my first apartment, when I was in college. I’m not looking forward to Christmas or the ten days that follow. I didn’t haul the boxes out of the garage or put up a tree this year. I want it to be over, and it hasn’t even begun. On the heels of Christmas is New Year’s, when the nightmare I’ve been living for almost a year began. I have a lot of dates coming up that I need to get through.

A few weeks ago, I went to get a Christmas tree with my son, Thomas, and his family while I was in Portland. While I was watching the employee tie the tree onto the top of the car, a particular memory came to mind; one I hadn’t anticipated, nor was I ready for it. I held back my sobs, trying my best to participate with enthusiasm in what should have been a fun outing with Thomas and his family. I recalled the first Christmas in the house that my family now refers to as the divorce house. It came with its challenges, starting with the Christmas tree. Picking out the tree had always been something we did as a family, whether it was cutting one down or buying one in a lot. I knew it wouldn’t have the same festive feel that year as it had in the past; I just wanted a tree: no fanfare, no hot chocolate and carolers, just a tree. Emery and I had been at Home Depot and decided, for efficiency, to get our tree there. It was bitterly cold, and we had had a day of snow and ice, so the tree was chosen quickly, without comparing it to other trees that might have had a better shape. I wanted to check the chore off the list and get out of the cold. After I paid for the tree, I asked the cashier where I should park so the tree could be secured to my car.
 “We don’t do that,” the cashier told me. “For insurance reasons. The customer is responsible for attaching the tree themselves.” “Me? You mean I was supposed to bring rope?” “Well, I suppose we could give you some rope.” I was waiting for the “but maybe we can make an acceptation for you and is this your daughter?”
 It didn’t come. She wasn’t going to help this newly single woman and her daughter in Christmas tree distress. It was close to closing time, and I could sense her anticipation of clocking out and going home.

The tree was too big to fit in the car, but Emery and I dragged it there, not exactly knowing what we would do with it once we got there. Luckily for both of us, we saw an employee who looked to be high school-aged, standing around, trying to look busy. I flagged him down and begged him to help us. He was quick to say he couldn’t and started in on the insurance issues. I told him I’d tip him. A lot. I had no idea what that meant, but it got him moving, but not before he looked around to see if anyone was watching. He told me he’d be right back with some rope. And for twenty dollars, or maybe it was more, I don’t remember, he secured the tree while Emery and I waited inside the warm car. The young man had no idea of the heroic gesture he had just made, and I have thought about him every year since, when buying my tree. The following year, I started the tradition of going to the places with the carolers, hot chocolate, and men who would load your tree and wish you a Merry Christmas when they were done.

Once home, Emery and I dragged the tree inside, only to realize that the back half of it was covered in ice. Why hadn’t we noticed the ice when we selected the tree? Or when it was being secured to the car? Perhaps because Emery and I were warming up in the car, likely listening to Celine Dion’s Christmas CD, while the ice-laden tree was being tied on. This realization wouldn’t come until the tree was in the living room, melting on the new hardwood floors. I looked at Emery, and we both shrugged and shook our heads, not sure whether we should laugh or cry.
 “Beach towels?” Emery asked. “Yeah, beach towels, because we can’t put it in the garage because it’s too cold out there and the ice will never melt.”
 And so, with a pile of beach towels circling the tree like a tree skirt to absorb the melting ice, we set the mess aside, roasted Brussel sprouts, and settled in for the Gilmore Girls because that’s what we often did in the evening. The tree eventually melted and was decorated, and life moved on. A few weeks later, after all the presents had been opened, I found a wooden crate containing three bottles of barbecue sauce that looked like it had been hidden under the tree. I asked my family and the workers who were still finishing up some projects in my house about the crate, but no one knew where it had come from. Someone, I don’t know who, gave me an untagged gift of spicy kindness that Christmas, and I still wonder who it was. Because I’m not a big BBQ sauce fan, I gave the sauce trio away, but kept the heartwarming feeling of someone’s quiet generosity.

 Christmas, 2024, was the last time I had a face-to-face conversation with Emery. The next day, she was struggling with the flu, along with the rest of her family. I went to her house a few times to bring food, but she insisted I stay away as she was afraid I’d catch what they were all struggling with. The first thing she said to me at our gathering at Mom’s retirement place on Christmas evening was,
 “No one told me I looked prettier than a hundred-dollar bill, Mom.” “No one told me either, sweetheart.”
 My Dad had three girls, two granddaughters, and one wife. He loved complimenting his girls, and from a very young age, whether or not we deserved it, Dad’s way of telling us we looked nice was to say we looked “prettier than a 100-dollar bill!” The irony being, I doubt Dad had seen many hundred-dollar bills in his lifetime; still, it was his gold standard, and his compliments were always appreciated. It was our first Christmas without Dad—our first Christmas of not being compared to a hundred-dollar bill. Then Emery told me that she had had a dream about Gramps the night before.
“He came to me in my dream, and I told him I felt bad because Christmas was the next day, and I hadn’t bought any gifts. He told me I had all the gifts I needed. I looked down and saw I was wearing a red coat with big pockets. He told me to look in the pockets, and I’d find everything I needed. And he was right, Mom, everything was in the pockets of the coat.”

I’ve thought about the dream and the red coat with everything she needed in the pockets. Emery often had relatives who had passed come to her in dreams, so this wasn’t unusual, but I can’t help but think Dad may have really been with her. Ten days later, I think it was my Dad, her Gramps, who helped her cross over. Emery’s dream about Dad feels like a gift to me now, given that it was our last conversation of significance. It was honest and weighty, with an almost poetic quality.

Before we said our goodbyes at Mom’s, I pulled Emery aside and said, “I think you look prettier than a hundred-dollar bill, Emery.” She smiled and said, “You do too, Mom.” I knew she was missing her Gramps, and corny as it was, we both missed being compared to a hundred-dollar bill.

Thanks for taking care of my girl, Dad. She really was as pretty as a hundred-dollar bill and even prettier on Christmas

Despite the joy and the beauty of twinkling lights, December has become a very heavy month for me. One day, one holiday, one anniversary at a time. I’m going slow.

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 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 had met when we were both in our 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 Kansas City. I’d be moving to Boulder the following summer. I liked to think of 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.

My Mother’s Day essays for the past several years have been written with musings of Pop-Tarts on make-shift trays and kids fighting over who gets to sit next to mom. This Mother’s Day is different. I’ve been dreading this Mother’s Day. Emery, who was the reason I moved to Boulder and the one who would make sure 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 by 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 asked for what she wanted. 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. 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, just the two of us, to New York, or perhaps 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 a lot 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 is my before, when joy was present, and my heart full, and now the after, when I can barely get out of bed in the morning, can’t sleep at night, and cry without 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 right. We are all changed, and our love of Emery and each other is holding us together. Through their love, I have found my bit of peace, 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 our lives 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 are my comfort. They are my world. 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 Mother’s 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 her emails. 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 was closed, but it wasn’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 with letting go that began when she started kindergarten and continued through her marriage and eventual move 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 weren’t 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 of missing someone. 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 live. 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, so he and Muna will have the tools to paint a picture of their Mama when she was their age. 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 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 feels 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.

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!