during the wake
we all gathered inside
close together
to talk, eat, laugh, cry, listen to music, tell stories, remember
celebrate a life
the children from 4-10
all played together
went outside
chalk in hand
wrote a beautiful welcome to all who would come
and loving tributes to the one who had left.
“tears are words that need to be written.”
-paul coelho
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we’d worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do the people we didn’t do and the people we didn’t marry and the children we didn’t have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.
We can’t tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
—
in memoriam of r.s. – you will be greatly missed and thanks for the music
—
credits:
text: Matt Haig – The Midnight Library, 2020.
art: Grant Haffner – Into the night, 1978
yesterday
my sister let us know
she lost her husband
of so many years
on christmas day
in this
the same year
he lost his father
before too long
we’ll fly to her
to be together
for a remembrance and celebration of his life.
—
“sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load.”
-charles henry parkhurst
a kind tribute
to my little himilayan irish kitty
yeti kennedy
from my compassionate vet’s office
in a perfect circle
he
appeared from the wild
returned to the wild.
—
“trees are as close to immortality as the rest of us ever come.”
― karen joy fowler
the littlest yeti
the bravest warrior
the sweetest brother to olive
lived with a disease he valiantly fought
made it to his first birthday
filled with crazy fun and sass
left the earth as suddenly as he appeared
as yetis sometimes do.
—
“all the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”
~ havelock ellis
my heart goes out to all children, their families, and their teachers
senselessly lost or hurt this week in a just a moment at a local school.
as a mother, grandmother, teacher, and human
i cannot make sense of it.
—
image credit: wild and precious
my heart goes out to all children, their families, and their teachers
senselessly lost or hurt this week in a just a moment at a local school.
as a mother, grandmother, teacher, and human
i cannot make sense of it.
—
image credit: wild and precious
Messages at NYC’s Union Square after the 9/11 attack – North Sullivan
—
“it has been said that time heals all wounds. i don’t agree. the wounds remain.
time – the mind, protecting its sanity –
covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens,
but it is never gone.”
-rose kennedy
1971 – with all my sibs and cousins – 8 of us
2021 – 2 gone too soon – missed by 6 of us
—
“a cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.”
-marion c. garrety
each of our faculty members
were allowed to go into their room alone for 30 minutes
during that time we could take
whatever we imagined we might need
to teach school — for the rest of the year.
walking into my building, it was silent
i saw the ‘welcome back to the sun’ and ‘happy spring’ artwork
my class had created for the hall
expecting to be back soon after our spring break
walking into my classroom
it was sad
left as it was back in mid-march
memories, things undone, things i wish i could still do with my class
cards, and art, and notes, and pictures, and colors, and books
30 minutes to decide what to take
i filled my bags with toys and books and art and puppets
anything i thought might make my kinder feel a sense of comfort
as i teach them from afar and show them familiar things
it was hard to close the door on the year
knowing i will stay connected to each of them
but also knowing
something will be lost
in not spending my school days
sharing a room with them.
—
“time flies over us,
but leaves its shadow behind. “
-nathaniel hawthorne
I didn't have my glasses on.... 