I assure her that I am well, and well-cushioned on Santa's sleigh of love, and I consider it all this morning.
I love this child, whose parents are kind enough to share her with me as though she were my own, and I am well, and she knows it will be a long time before I can fly there to visit her again. She is writing a novel. She tells me it is "very sad," and I have seen a page of it. It is about a child whose father dies in the war. Here is the title and first line of her novel.
"War killed my Daddy….
I decided a long time ago that war killed my daddy, and war ain't got one bit of peace in it."
Well, that is certainly something to consider. The last time I saw Katy was June and we built fairy houses together, and scattered the ashes of my mother who died in February. Katy had this to say about that. "I live my life knowing that my Gramma, Betty B. Bartel, died happily!" What better tribute to her grandmother than that? Her grandmother was a happy woman, and is surely pleased.
I am reading Jean Shinoda Bolen's wonderful book "Close to the Bone - Life-Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning." This is a book for everyone. I consider the descent into the underworld, the myths of Persephone and Inanna. I feel badly that I am the one to introduce my beloved niece to suffering. She woke up crying the other night from a dream that she was dying, and didn't have time to say good-bye. I can't help thinking this relates to me, though my brother assures me it is her age. I wonder. How many times do we go beneath the earth, and then, rise again to the sky? Isn't it different for each one of us? I feel my niece beginning young.
I ask you to place Katy in your thoughts today. She dances in the light of fairies, Santa, and love.
I also see that she writes and paints what she feels. She seems to me to be dealing with death and sadness through her writing. I hope to do the same. I suggest it also to you. What is tuning your heart to song?
On what clouds do you dance? Where do you sit in Santa's sleigh?
Jingle bells and turkey calls to all,
Cathy