There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about and miss my father. Perhaps it was the kindness that was so much his hallmark… perhaps it was his endless patience and his willingness to drop whatever he was doing to listen, to care, to act. “Want to read me a book, Papa?” [ Read More ]
Bronwyn at three and a half was already a Montessori scholar. Daily she trudged to an enlightened classroom where a teacher who genuinely liked children taught her how to scrub her desk with soapsuds, mess it up with fingerpaint and repeat the process. She was understandably enthralled. So much so, that Cee Cee at 2½ [ Read More ]
Love manifests in the strangest ways. Just like courage. And understanding. Sometimes it sneaks up on you and you don’t realize how great a gift it is or how much self-sacrifice was required of the giver. Until later, much later in the game of life, when you’ve grown old enough to know that nothing is [ Read More ]
When I was a child, I thought of my mother’s sister Mary as the Dowager Empress of the World. She was tall and stately and would sit on her chair like a queen on a throne, her adoring daughters dancing attendance on her as if she thoroughly deserved it. In truth, she probably did, as [ Read More ]
The talk of possibilities for Paint the Wind to become a movie or miniseries has caused me to be reminded very hauntingly of my mother. I should tell you, I think, that although my mother’s name was Kate, the family called her Manu, because it meant Giver of the Law in Hindi – she was [ Read More ]
I’ve been thinking about my Father a lot this Holiday Season. Missing him… wishing he were here with me and Dakota to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth time. Papa was a rare bird. He laughed a lot and taught me useful things… how to hang storm windows… how to recite poetry with [ Read More ]
I can’t think of a better New Year’s Resolution than to try to live up to the gentle truths of my father’s philosophy, so I’d like to offer them to you in this little poem I wrote about him, both as a loving remembrance, and as a tribute to the kind of old fashioned values [ Read More ]
The ghosts of Christmas past Wandered by my tree just now A cup of tea in hand, I stopped To admire the sweetness of the nearly trimmed tree And there you were My Mommy and Daddy Young and shiny, hopeful as when On Christmas morning I’d open the presents You’d saved to buy.
Because she didn’t understand that love was meant to be soft and warm, but she intended to be loving, nonetheless, my mother gave from her brain, instead of her heart. I believe her heart had been battered shut in childhood by a tyrannical father and ineffectual mother, but her mind was limitless and her teaching [ Read More ]
My parents read to me and to each other, a spectacular gift that rings in me still. It was poetry for the most part — and I loved it so much I never went to bed a night without memorizing a poem, or at least a group of verses. If the poem was lengthy like [ Read More ]