Since leaving Mom alone in Tucson in March of '90, I tried to write her frequently about our new lives in Seattle. I saved the cards and letters she wrote to me.

One day on our trip during a phone call, she told me that she'd spent the day shredding my old letters. "What?!" I asked. "Why?"

"I don't know," she said, but I knew why. She'd been getting "her affairs in order" for some while, so we would not have so much to deal with...

A couple of days ago I was out walking with Bigun when I saw a red Pekingese pulling his owner toward us from a side street. I stopped and asked the owner if we should say hello, and she agreed. The little fellow pulled her across the street to us, happy to say hello to Bigun and me. What a charmer he was to me, but apparently not to Big'. Big' took a cursory sniff of the little guy and turned his rump around, as usual, so the little one could sniff (I thought). Then, he lifted his leg to...

"The warrior is never caught in the trap of doubt. The fundamental doubt is doubting yourself. This doubt can manifest as anxiety, jealousy, or arrogance. In its extreme form, you slander others because you doubt your own confidence. The warrior of perky, symbolized by the snow lion, rests in a state of trust that is based on modesty and mindfulness. Confident within him- or herself, therefore, this warrior has no doubt. He or she is always aware and is never confused about what to accept or...

Saturday ended a long, back-straining week of reorganizing, moving and cleaning to move our possessions from the lower level of our home to the upper level. (We've decided to rent the downstairs as a separate unit -- again, to mitigate the lost income from my lay-off.) Bigun was feeling the effects as much as we were, though his was a build up of energy from lack of exercise, where ours was the opposite. When DH asked what I wanted to do on Sunday, I looked at Big' and knew immediately.
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My family has been gifted that no one has been lost to political conflict, but as with us all at my age, many have fallen to life's battles.

So, in memory of those valiant souls that did their best while they were here, in ALL of our families:

God's Rest to you each and every one. Those of us you've left behind miss you to this moment. A lump forms in our throat, our eyes mist, our heart tightens and we long for just one more touch of your hand, one more caress of your...