My cousin and I were corresponding about Papa Bob, and life and death and probate, and he signed the email, “Much Love and Hope” — which pretty sums it up doesn’t it? The only things that are going to carry us through winter, Covid, crazy politics, the only things that will save us– are love and hope. (And of course action. As my friend Tony Tengs sings with his Juneau band The Preserves, “Peace doesn’t come from a wishing well…we’ve gotta lift a finger to make a change come around, we’ve gotta raise our voice, make a sound.”
I like to read poems before I look at my phone in the morning. I keep poetry books on the table near the fire or up by my desk, and I’ll open one to a random page and take the poem my eyes land on first as a sign. (Well, sometimes. If I don’t like the tone or the subject matter, I do give myself a mulligan. Keep this, as the Quakers who taught me used to say, between me and thee.) Anyway, I opened up Mary Oliver’s Redbird to a poem titled “Watching a Documentary About Polar Bears Trying to Survive on the Melting Ice Floes”:
That God had a plan, I do not doubt.
But what if His plan was, that we would do better?
And we can do better, so much better.
There has been a lot of snow this week, 2 more feet or so, and now it’s raining, and my grief came bubbling up like the half-frozen drains. But then the kids came over, three little people spent the night, and we ate pizza and watched a movie, and read stories and made pancakes for breakfast with whipped cream from the can, “the squirty kind” and they added their own sayings to the chalkboard by the door, and all is now right with the world. Mostly. Or as much as I have reason to expect.
Which is a long way of telling you, again, thank you very much for all the emails about Papa Bob, and the cards, and gifts (oranges from Florida!)it means a lot. More than you know, and it’s a little embarassing, because I wish I were as kind and thoughtful as you are.
Also, I wanted to tell you not to worry, because you won’t hear from me until after Feb. 20. I am off to visit my mother-in-law Grandma Joanne (90!) in the speedskating capital of Florida. (It’s your news quiz for the day). I haven’t seen her in two years. This is going to be a lot of fun.
Much Love and Hope,
Heather
