Here we are dear readers!   All of us standing at the door, about to close one door on 2024 and cross the threshold through the doorway leading into 2025.

How are you?!

Are you looking outward, ready for what will unfold in the vast unknown of the next 365 days? 

Are you looking inward, at the past 364 days, not sure you are ready to turn and set your wings in flight?

Let me say, which ever direction you are facing, it is okay.   

The most important thing as the hours move closer to 12:00:01 is that you are being kind to yourself with whatever you are feeling.  

May Grace also whisper to you dance, for in that dance between opposites, I anticipate all of us find ourselves throughout the days in any given year looking outward and looking inward.   Soaring our wings and other times gripping something to hold onto. 

It is the beautiful joy of being.   Of experiencing a sacred gift we’ve all been given.   The gift of life. 

Before I convey my wishes, let me first look to the past 364 days and say thank YOU!   For your readership and your encouragement.   If I had the ability to handwrite a thank you note to each of you I would.   (My students can affirm I am not just saying that! {smile})    May you read these words and feel the gratitude they hold for YOU. 

As you cross the threshold into 2025, my wishes are that you enter and that in the vast unknown ahead you will dance with Peace when Uncertainty enters onto the dance floor.  That Joy will stand up and take your hand when Sadness or Worry is holding you in an embrace.  That Gentleness will show you how to two-step with ease when Harsh is trying to introduce dance moves you don’t want to learn.  That Faith and Trust will fight for your attention when Doubt and Fear are striving to convince you they are better dancers.   That Forgiveness will show how to start your dance from your soul when Anger or Insecurity wish you to only dance from your mind and your past experiences.   And that with all the dance partners, you will know that it is all a choreography from Love.    

Namaste’

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Laura

Once Laura typed J, my favorite nephew, she stopped. Usually, too lengthy investigative articles were her challenge. Now, no words flowed.

Instead, memories flooded Laura’s mind faster than she could gather to perform her usual puzzle picture process. That was one of the things Abby was always declaring she loved about Laura; how Laura reflected on a question and then waited for recollections to provide the answer(s).  Laura wrote the recollections in a journal Abby made for her, then she retreated into their sitting room, where she pondered, utilized different colored pencils to sketch connectors between the memories, and journaled until the remembrances shaped into a clarifying picture.

Abby, filled with such childlike eagerness, had handed Laura a beautifully wrapped package on their first wedding anniversary twelve years ago. Abby had found a fabric design of puzzle pieces randomly scattered. She had then glued the fabric onto the outer front and back covers of a journal in decoupage style. Though Abby did so on their first anniversary because paper was the traditional gift, Laura has been able to count on a decoupage journal every year since.

Laura reached for her journal, grabbed a pen, and like the pending email response, no words flowed. She couldn’t transfer the memory from her mind to paper from when she was nine years old, standing quietly holding a glass of milk and a plate of homemade cookies she had brought to her father while he was working on one of his journalism pieces.  He had stopped typing, turned, and looked up at her silhouette, with one of the broadest grins she had ever seen him display only to witness that same smile quickly vanish as he turned back to his typing with a perfunctory hey Laura, what do you need?

Nor could she write about the time she was a sophomore in high school, anxiously awaiting to share with her father the feedback she had received from the journalism teacher about an article she had written. Outstanding work Laura! You have real potential! The Chicago Tribune will be lucky to have you on their staff one day!

After dinner, Laura handed her father a copy of what she had written, including the words in blue ink by her teacher. He took it to his desk, pulled out a red pen, and began marking up the paper with strikeouts and notations. A few minutes later, when he handed his edits back to Laura, he said pretty good Laura.   I don’t think I’d go so far as to say Chicago Tribune ready, but there is potential.

Laura didn’t have any recollections of her father saying I’m proud of you.

Laura continued staring at the blank pages as she recalled a memory of her mother sitting at their breakfast nook staring out the bay window. Her right index finger and thumb were turning her wedding ring around and around on her left finger. A few moments later, Laura watched as her mom placed her hands in her lap, looked down, slowly placed her right hand over her left hand, and then after what seemed like minutes, laced her fingers together, raised her interlocked hands to her chest, and bowed her head.  Laura tiptoed back out of the kitchen before her mom raised her head back up.

It was this same memory Laura thought of when Abby placed the wedding ring on her finger, then took Laura’s left hand with her own left hand, already wearing the ring Laura had placed on Abby’s petite velvet soft finger.  Abby intertwined her fingers with Laura’s and counted to eight as they stood in front of their intimate gathering of guests. Unity. Solidarity. Infinity.

That is what Abby’s fingers felt like threaded with Laura’s.

Laura pushed aside the memory of her father’s right-handed fingers laced together with her mom’s left hand as her mom lay dying. She also refused to remember the tears running down her father’s cheeks.

A recollection of Joshua sitting next to her father in the study suddenly entered Laura’s mind. She could vividly see her sixteen-year-old nephew holding a framed picture and her father’s hand touching Joshua’s left shoulder. Every one of them – Joshua, her father, mother, Laura – they were all trying to figure out how to say goodbye to Stephanie as Leukemia raged bolder and mightier than Stephanie’s immunity could defeat.

Joshua and her father didn’t hear Laura come to the doorway, and sensing she was about to interrupt something sacred, she quietly stepped from the doorway but felt compelled not to walk away.   She could hear Joshua say I don’t know how to say goodbye grandpa. 

Her father’s reply was usually we don’t get the chance to do so.  Life usually chooses for us.

If feels like life is choosing this time, too, Grandpa, Joshua’s cracking voice tried to speak. If mom didn’t have Leukemia, I wouldn’t have to tell her it’s ok to go. 

Laura almost peeked back into the study when it seemed quiet for too long. Then she heard her father say My brother, your great Uncle Donnie, was killed in action during the Vietnam War. His death was my first loss. He was my best friend.

Your Aunt Laura reminds me a lot of your Uncle Donnie. She has his smile and his passion for justice. My brother was the natural born writer of the two of us. Donnie was determined he was going to be a journalist for the Chicago Tribune someday. I chose journalism, I guess as a way to keep his dream alive.  Your Aunt Laura, she has Donnie’s natural writing gifts.

Laura quickly closed the journal and turned to the computer.

J, my favorite nephew

I will help find this missing woman.

Let me talk with Abby – my wife, about when we can fly to the U.S. I will also talk with my boss about working remote. In the meantime, send me whatever info you can find in your grandpa’s belongings.

Love you,

Aunt L