Comings and Goings

My Mom, seven months gone now, visited me last night in a vivid dream. She told me:

“There is nothing to worry about. Nothing. Everything is bearable.”

Today is my granddaughter Zadie’s 3^rd birthday. It would have been my father-in-law Ted’s (gone three years) 90^th birthday. Tomorrow would have been my Dad’s (gone seven years) 96^th birthday. I can’t but help think of the movie Grand Hotel , people coming, people going, checking in, checking out. The days of worry, of bearing up, of exultation, of celebration. And that marvelous line from the dying clerk in the movie who has just had the best night of his life:

To life! To the magnificent, dangerous, brief, brief, wonderful life...and the courage to live it!

Thanks, Mom, for the visit and the happiest of birthdays to those still here and those passed on. The earth spins and I prepare for another marvelous day.