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— I wrote this article earlier this year (in September 2020), but I thought I would publish it, today. —

Have you had a child who is no longer alive?  Today is September 11, 2020 – 9/11.  Today, former Vice President Biden was talking with a 90-year-old woman about the loss of his first wife and of his children when he said, “It never goes away.”  The son of the 90-year-old woman was killed in the 9-11 attack on America.  “It never goes away.”  She agreed with Biden.  “It never goes away.”

A glioblastoma took the life of my second child about five years ago.  Diagnosed in January, her life was taken by November of that year.  What Biden and the woman said is true – it never goes away.

Really, what IS love?  How do we humans make that connection that is described as love?  Are we talking about God’s love?  Or, Shakespeare’s kind of love?  Or, the movie makers’ kind of love?  The definition of love seems to have changed over the eons of time.

Here is a computer definition of love – an intense feeling of deep affection.  For example, babies fill parents with feelings of love.  There are, of course, some similar words that relate to love.  Words like deep affection, tenderness, intimacy, endearment, idolization, worship … I could go on and on and on!

Fragile Skin.  A lot of us at our age have fragile skin.  We see them in theatres, restaurants, church, the grocery store – everywhere.  Even before I took the anticoagulant medicine, the back of my hands looked as if someone had taken a sledge hammer to them.

And, my arms.  Splotches of bruise from elbow to wrist.  Other parts of my skin with the same splotches.  Age spots, some say.  Running into doors, bumping against the bedstead, or the kitchen faucet.  Spots come and spots go.  Some stay longer than others.  And, it seems that as soon as one spot fades, another one shows up.

The worst, though, is when you look down at your hand or arm, wrist or knee and see the blood dripping down your skin away from the wound that you didn’t even know was there.  So, off you go to the bathroom or where ever you keep your bandages or tissues to stop the flow.  Sometimes, if you’re lucky, there will be someone there who can help you put on the bandage.

Wind frightens me.  It’s one in the morning, and the wind is blowing.  It is REALLY blowing.  Alexa (a Christmas gift from Bryan) says to expect winds at ten mph with gusts to almost thirty mph.  I know that March is supposed to be the month of wind, but here we get a lot of wind in January.

I remember when I was a kid, living in Southern Colorado.  My family of five girls and a mom and dad lived in what we would today call a Denver Square. No central heading.  No inside plumbing.  Electricity was a drop cord light hanging from the center of each room.

Sister Clara and I slept upstairs beneath heavy quilts made by mom from our father’s overalls and old jackets.  And, the wind blew.  The wind blew so hard that I was sure, as a child, it shook the bed in which we slept.  I’ve remembered that fear for my entire life.  At a point, I thought that it could not be true.  Wind blowing into and through a house, shaking the bed where two little girls slept.

 Remember that I said, “Every day, I make mistakes – sometimes more and sometimes fewer than the day before.”  And, remember that I said, my house often has unusual animals living here? My #3 daughter reminded me that we also had prairie dogs and that we babysat (OWLSAT?) an owl that belonged to a friend. This is part two of last week’s blog.  The second BIG mistake of the year about two years ago.

MISTAKE # 2:  Beth (my geologist friend), and her friend found some ancient turtle tracks somewhere in the hills west of the metro area.  After many discussions about the tracks, as well as preservation activities by interested parties and directed by Beth, she wondered what would turtle tracks look like from today’s animals.  “No problem,” I assured her.  “I’ll just get a turtle, and I’ll ask a photographer friend Marjie to photograph the turtle’s tracks.”

Every day, I make mistakes – sometimes more and sometimes fewer than the day before.  It was about two years ago when I made a couple of HUGE mistakes.

MISTAKE # 1:  The first was the day the boys next door said, “Mrs. B., would you like to have our geckos?”

My house is known for having unusual animals living here.  And, I don’t mean the people.  Rather, my house has, at one time or another, housed eastern corn snakes, a green iguana, guinea pigs, hamsters, spiders in cages, and ant lions (we used to call them doodle bugs), also in cages.  Then, there was the pheasant (incubated and hatched in my classroom) and Percy, the nine-lined ground squirrel brought home by my daughter from the day care playground where she worked and fed milk with an eye dropper every two hours until he could eat solid food.

It’s been almost a year that we’ve known this pandemic was alive and destructive to this world.  Longer if some reports are to be believed – I believe them.  I’ve made an attempt to pay attention to what I’ve been learning during this time.  Was it the teaching of the pandemic that presented these things for my edification?  Or would I have learned them during these past months in my normal life?  Here’s what I’ve learned.

Much is written about ringing in the new year and ringing out the old.  Let’s not go there.  You know what you will be doing on New Year’s Eve.  We don’t need to talk about it.  It might be good for us to look at the future – near and far.  HOW DO YOU PLAN FOR THIS NEW YEAR?  Only you can determine that.  I’ve decided this week to not give you a diatribe about the customary pleas we hear for going into a new year.  Rather, I determined to give you two poems to think about this time in our lives.  This first poem was written a year ago for the Tips and Chips newsletter of the Denver Gem and Mineral Guild; it was published in the January 2020 edition.

When I was kid, we used to sing, “Christmas comes but once a year.  So, you’d better make hay while the snow is falling.”  As kids, we figured that the sing/song meant that merchants had to make their money during the busy Christmas season.  And, I suppose we were right!  But, now I wonder.

Snow has been falling, lately.  Maybe, “making hay while the snow falls” means making those people connections that may be gone because of  times like this.  Maybe, it means getting things done because we have time to do them.  Things that we have been avoiding until “the snow is falling.

As promised, with this article, I want to celebrate the women in my life.  And, a few more men because as I was working through these past few weeks, I realized that there are additional people (men) that must be included in the accounting of my friends, helpers, and relatives.  While thinking about all of these people, I was made aware of how many folks with whom I come in contact, sometimes every day, whose names I’ve never learned – never taken the time to simply say, “Will you please tell me your name?  It will be nice to know.”  I’m hoping you will stay with me for this long haul.  These people deserve our attention.

At the top of my list, of course, is my family.  My mother Hazel taught all of her daughters to be independent and never ask someone to do anything you were not willing to do yourself.  And, she could make something out of nothing better than anyone else in the world.