… to Boltgirl, who lost her grandmother to a stroke on Sunday … and brings to my mind the fleeting preciousness of every single moment of our lives.  The slap of a screen door and sound of barefeet running across a summertime porch to some manner of outdoor adventure.  It’s all in there – the smells, the sounds, the textures of it. We hold it all … the poignant losses that memory can touch but not quite grasp.

I reflect, with gratitude, on the people who have graced my days.  The meals cooked, the diapers changed, the appointments made and kept, snowsuits snapped on … all the daily tasks and the hands that tended to them.  Nothing spectacular, nothing glittery or newsworthy or award-winning … but the stuff that holds life together … day-to-day-to-day.

I celebrate my father, steady as they come, who did what he needed to do and enjoyed the simple things, as he would attest.  He also endured Mom … and rooting for Philadelphia teams for his entire life.  I think that the two things are probably related.

And I celebrate my mother who was who she was.  With all the craziness … and I do mean craziness … she still somehow kept track of three kids and all the stuff that is involved in that.  What wrong-headed-but-prodigious energy it must have taken, to do all of that and still manage to have time left-over for endless hours of railing against the pope and other demonized entities!  (And no wonder she died at 49 … so much had been expended so hard for so long).

This Thanksgiving I am grateful.  Yes.