These are the days of miracle and wonder.
So much is changing. Big and small. Grace is getting ready to go to college. Mum is moving out of the house she and Dad lived in for 30 years. Whit is going to have his driver’s license soon. We are thinking of moving a few towns over. Matt and I are hanging on, holding hands as we navigate these transitions. And I am so, so grateful for that hand-holding, much as I sometimes demonstrate irritation more than thankfulness.
A few things have spoken to me lately, amid the swirl of life right now.
Old photos of Dad as we unclutter at Mum’s. In the photo above I feel like I’m looking at Whit. I never saw it before!
So many wonderful old photos of Hilary and me as children, often with Mum and Dad. I’m sharing them from time to time on Instagram, and one of my favorites is below.
Thank God for the Poets – Margaret Renkl’s beautiful op-ed in the New York Times made me both cry and feel like singing. Her book, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, is among my favorites of recent years. This piece, like a few others before it, was sent to me by no fewer than 10 different people in my life, which made me so glad. It’s like when people send me photos of the sunsets from where they are. Small gestures like that make me feel both seen and connected, part of the grand human experiment, the pageant of this life.
Which is so full of both suffering and glory, of loss and love. I wrote a text to a few friends recently that parenting was one long series of goodbyes, suffused with love. And it is. I think always of my friend Elizabeth’s annual Christmas card tag line: “an endless alleluia.”
Life is. Now. Then. Always. How lucky we are.
