By Histoire d’Elle (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
Tag: Family
Survivor
I know I am becoming someone different. I just don’t know what that difference will be yet.
— Joelle Wright-Terry, 47, a hospice chaplain from Clinton Township, Mich., is a Covid survivor. She lost her husband to the virus last April. From “Emerging From the Coronavirus” in The New York Times, April 5, 2021
Notes:
- Photo: Joshua Terry, Joelle Wright Terry , Marshall Terry and Micah Terry. (Photo by Joelle Wright Terry)
- NPR Story: COVID-19 Remembrance: A Wife Carries On Her Late Husband’s Legacy
And she said Yes!
Merry Christmas
The picture was taken last night. Part of a family tradition that Grandma started years and years ago — Grandma sends her gifts which they open on Christmas Eve. It’s always pajamas. The ritual never grows old, and has travelled with us as we moved from city to city, and from house to house, chasing a Life.
It’s 5 a.m. It’s silent now, but for the high winds howling outside my window. The moment reminds me of their younger days, when we lived in much smaller quarters.
“We call out good night to each other down the hall. How beautiful, the way that children sleep so deeply and peacefully that their parents’ voices do not wake them.” (Elizabeth Alexander, “The Light of the World: A Memoir.”)
I sit, writing this post. It’s quiet but for my breathing. A tear slides down my cheek.
Martin Amis said that “Time has come to feel like a runaway train, flashing through station after station.” Melancholy sweeps over me — I wonder how many more Christmas moments are left before they move on with their lives.
Maybe one more. Please, give us at least one more…
Merry Christmas.
Thanksgiving Morning
Quiet has many moods. When our sons are home, their energy is palpable. Even when they’re upstairs sleeping I can sense them, can feel the house filling with their presence, expanding like a sail billowed with air. I love the dawn stillness of a house full of sleepers, love knowing that within these walls our entire family is contained and safe, reunited, our stable four-sided shape resurrected.
~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Photo: DK, home, Thanksgiving Day, Nov 26, 2020. 55° & Rain.