A Challenging Year

The End of Summer is nigh. The trees have lost their robust green. Some are even tinged with Autumn's yellows.

For me this is the end of the year. September brings a new season with a new pace. Some summer dreams are folded up for another time. The happy times recorded, wait on full cameras. The world drifts in lazy quiet.

This has not been a gentle year and I am tired.

In several weeks we will celebrate the first birthday of my grandson. He is a bright spark of humanity, with a gentleness that helps calm the world. His entry into the world was not a gentle one. For the first few weeks, he did not thrive and his mummy was in and out of the hospital with unrelated health issues for three months. I thoroughly enjoyed being a presence in his early days and now delight in his healthy pudginess. My daughter will return to work soon from maternity leave. His father is a wonderfully engaged parent. However the worry beads got a good workout.

My sweet, old rabbit hound died before our life could return to normal. She was an eccentric bundle of joy and I miss her daily. She died Thanksgiving weekend.

I never find Christmas an easy season. There are happy times, but it also comes loaded with grand expectations and memories of not so happy times. Last Christmas was spent at my daughter's house. Her little girls were spending their first Christmas apart with their daddy and his large family merriment.

On their return, we did our best to fill the house floor to ceiling with fun. We had fun, but it was a tough Christmas.

I love  my house in winter. The fire burns and the living room glows. This past winter did not offer many chances to enjoy such warmth. My cousin, who lives nearby, went into the hospital for a relatively simple operation, and was caught in a grand struggle between life and death. Long ago warnings of blood poisoning in my mother's stories, became a reality. A once healthy man became a frail image of his former self. His friends rallied, his family rallied, indeed the whole community rallied until in fact he rallied. We finally were able to take a deep breath as he became able to return to his former life.

Spring brought with it fresh air and bright sunny days.

Unfortunately, all was not well in this small kingdom. For reasons beyond my understanding, we had a mini outbreak of unkindness. Words were spoken that could not be taken back, actions sometimes spoke even louder than the words. Good people acted in nasty ways.

It took an act of will to fully appreciate a wonderful world that usually, continuously seeps in.

.... and then my grandchildren arrived.

I cannot claim that an exuberant six year old and and her no less exuberant four year old sister brought about a peaceable kingdom. I do know that an egg timer measured hammock time, little baby cousin could not have got more love and attention and the nearby beaches of the shore absorbed so much energy and offered endless adventures and fascinations.

Water gun fights, trips to swim in a freshwater lake, late night sparklers, a living room filling challenging puzzle, creations involving puddles of glue and unwashable paint, endless watermelon, a fort in the bushes, dress up clothes, dolls from another time. The squeals of joy and the not so joyous squeals.

I became very aware of the wisdom of young women and men holding the reins of parenthood.

The house is quiet now, just old Moe and me. Maybe just a little too quiet. Good byes are not easy.

However, there is time to rest, and as I rest gradually kneed everything into a loaf of memory, for future baking.