Not every day, but often, as I walk across the Fort Port Channel Bridge on my way to work I see Valerie.  She is a street person.  I'm not sure where she spends her nights, but she starts her mornings looking at the water.  When she spots me her arms are flung wide and, as she continues to recline on the bench, she reaches for a hug.  Sometimes I slip her the price of a cup of coffee, but I think it's the hug that she really looks forward to.  Street people don't get hugged much, it occurs to me.

I've never asked her story.  It's none of my business.  Some days she looks rougher than other days.  She may drink or drug.  I don't know.  I'm not in the lecturing business and it wouldn't change anything if I were.  I had a spare rain poncho left over from my son's graduation which seemed like a good idea.  Mostly she can't take much because where would she keep it?

I asked her name because I saw her pretty often.  I've also asked the name of the guy in South Station wearing the Burger King purple velvet robe who hands out the Metro newspaper.  He's Dorrell.  It's a thing I believe.  If you see someone every day, you should learn his or her name.  We all need to be known.  And sometimes hugged.  But Valerie shares my first name, which caught me by surprise.  It's not a very common name, although it's certainly not rare.  Knowing we shared a name made me think about her in a slightly different way.  Maybe it was the "there but for the grace of God go I" thing.  Maybe I wonder how anyone can live with so few material possessions. Sometimes I just look at the water and try to see what she sees.

And here we are, riding on the same Blue Marble, day chasing day, seasons meaning a lot more to her than to me.  She knows where to find air conditioning or heat, of course.  But she has to think about it in a totally different way from the way I do.  For her it's life and death.  The shortened hours of sunlight mean danger, along with cold.

Meanwhile I mumble about the Red Line and dread shoveling snow in front of my own home, and digging out our two cars.  Every once in a while it's good to send a thought and a prayer to the other Valerie.  It keeps my feet a little more grounded to have to stop and appreciate how very much I have.

Doors are magical.  Every day we open our front door onto another surprise.  Sometimes it's snowstorms that change our perceptions of the world we live in, sometimes hedges defiantly peeping through piles of ice and dirt, and one of these days (please, God) a crocus or tulip.  We open the door to strangers selling things, to friends visiting, to our sons coming home for visits. When I was sick recently I opened my door and found a bag of chicken soup and treats and tea from a loving friend.  Even the mail is an adventure if you look at it the right way.

Sometimes I'm not going out.  I'm coming in.  Reactions can be "Ugh, I have GOT to clean this place before they film a Febreze commercial in here!" or "Ahhhh.  Home."  If someone is there to greet me the energy is different.  If it's my husband we putter and do our separate things in companionable silence sometimes, or chatter about our days.  Eventually we'll sit on the reclining couch to watch something (anything) on the TV and one or both of us will nod off to sleep half way through.  If the boys are home they are coming or going with friends or without, but sometimes they actually stay put for a bit and talk to us and play a board game or share a meal.  I memorize those moments, realizing that they, like the snow, are disappearing quickly.  When I open the door and there is no answer to my call, the emptiness is always a disappointment.  This is one of the reasons my house is not tidy.  I hate being there alone for any length of time.  Well, that and the fact that I don't like housework.

Then there's the Big Door at the end of our lives, the one through which we walk alone.  Who knows what surprises lie beyond that door?  I find that door is ajar sometimes.  There are times when my heart drifts through to get a look at what's coming up.  It stopped scaring me a long time ago, maybe because I have so many people I've loved who have joined my "Advance Team" and gone through first.  Other times I swear I feel the presence of those wonderful friends and family members who "visit" at the most unpredictable times.  I'll hear a song that I just KNOW is a message.  A car will miss hitting me by two coats of paint and I know I'm being watched over.  The connection is still there.  The love doesn't disappear just because it can't be expressed in a hug at the moment.  Any more than the world disappears when I close my front door.

After the winter that made me wonder if my husband had secretly moved us to Greenland during the night, it was lovely to see the crocuses blooming here and there on the lawn of the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston on the Summer Street side, across the street from South Station.  They aren't in big, dramatic clumps.  They are lightly scattered and most people walk by without noticing them, but they are really delightful.  Last week all the flowers were yellow, which I'm beginning to think is some "crocus hierarchy" thing, since they come up first on my lawn, too.  This week we have purple, and a few scattered white (with a hint of purple stripes).  They are as cute as anything and I'm liking them a lot.

Here amid the concrete and steel of the Fed, surrounded by  metal posts set into the sidewalk to keep trucks from driving through the windows and grabbing the money (I guess...although someone could just have really lousy taste in statuary) are these humble little patches of color, like tufts on a hand-stitched quilt.

I make a point of checking on their progress every day since I feel that anything that grows downtown needs encouragement.  I try not to talk to them aloud (people don't understand) but I do smile at them every single time I pass them.  They won't last long.  They never do.  But while they are here I intend to enjoy them.

As usual, Christmas came and went and we all survived.  It wasn't the Hallmark Movie of the Week, and "the perfect life-changing present" (which doesn't exist) wasn't under the tree, but it was lovely in its own, quiet, and ever-changing way.  One sister and her husband and daughter and her friend made it for Christmas Eve and brought meatballs and cookies (two different dishes, you'll be relieved to hear).  The other sister has grown fearful of traveling in the dark and didn't feel brave enough to venture forth, and while I understand and sympathize with that, it also made me a little sad.  Nothing stays the same.  I have to keep reminding myself that it's not supposed to.

The presents from the boys were thoughtful and whimsical and required no help from Mom and Dad except for transportation to the mall.  Son Number One gave me a tee shirt which reads "Vassar College  - undefeated since 1861" and there's a football on it.  Well the school was all girls until 1969 and there never has been a football team, and I thought it was very funny.  He also gave me a book on how to make money from writing my blog.  A certain celebrity on the west coast will read that line and rub her hands in glee and shout "See!  I told you!" but we'll talk later, Susan.
Son Number Two gave me a New York Times Crossword a Day calendar and I'm really looking forward to using it.  I love crosswords, but never make time for them.  He also gave me a tee shirt.  This one is flaming red with the Wonder Woman logo on the front.  I've already worn it to work, prompting some rather interesting comments.

It's still hard to think of all the missing friends and family who have been here in years gone by.  An ornament recalls a face or a time, a picture on the piano grabs my eye, and my heart gives the same kind of twinge I'm getting used to from my knees, except it hurts more.  But, as with the knees, I acknowledge it, suck it up, and move on.  Nobody wants to hear about my aches.  As they say about the Virgin Mary, "I ponder all these things in my heart."

Himself is a gift all on his own.  In addition to Herculean struggles at cleaning the house in preparation for company, he has continued to toil away at bringing order to chaos in the days that have followed. It has been a trip down Memory Lane as his archeological dig has unearthed bits and pieces from the past that I have long forgotten.  I'm beginning to think there might actually be a cozy home under all the piles, and that might be the greatest present of all, along with the purchase for at least the tenth year in a row of "The Writer's Market", which assures me that he still believes in my dream.  Some years the binding is never cracked.  Other years there is a tentative dive into certain sections to see what the possibilities are.  But as Father Hugh used to say, back in the day when I thought I'd be alone and misunderstood forever, "The groundwork doesn't show until one day...."

So here's to Christmas miracles and Hallmark moments and learning to "go with the flow", which reminds me of another famous Father Hugh quote: "Don't push the river, kid.  It flows by itself."  I am only beginning to learn at 61 how much courage it takes to get on the raft and enjoy the ride.

It's been "One Of Those Weeks".  I've worked the office job from 10 to 3 Monday through Friday (after working at the boutique on Sunday) and then Thursday and Friday nights I worked at the boutique until 10.  Saturday I worked from 11 to 3:30, and today it's 2 to 7.  Son Number One's girlfriend arrived (love her!) on Saturday morning at 1AM and I am, quite frankly, a tad fatigued.  The grass is almost peeking in at the window sill and sobbing for attention.  It will wait a few hours, I'm sure.  Plantar fasciitis is tuning up for a symphony in my left heel.  For right now I am enjoying sitting still.  The torrential rains have left, and this Sunday morning the windows are open for a cool breeze and birdsong to start my day.  There is a book at my elbow which is singing its siren song, to which I have every intention of succumbing.  Give me a hot cup of tea and I shall rule the world.
I don't know what I did during the fourteen years I was lucky enough to be at home with my children.  It certainly wasn't housework.  They had their music lessons and sports, karate black belts and play dates.  My universe revolved around their schedules and that was our choice and our privilege.  Most people don't have the option of walking out on their careers and taking an orchestra seat at life.  Getting back into it (not a "career", but a "job") has been challenging.
So much of how we define ourselves involves how we make money.  At a party, when approached by a stranger and asked "Who are you?" the answer often is "I'm a doctor" or "I work in computers" or "I'm a cashier at Walmart and a pole dancer on weekends".  I was stuck for an answer for a while, feeling a little guilty that my life was mostly driving the car and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  There was the embarrassment of not making a paycheck, but also an embarrassment of riches.  I had time with my children.  My friend Flanagan (whom I miss with a white hot heat) would call many days and be the only adult I spoke to between the hours of 8AM and 7PM.  He would chide me to "Be a human being, not a human doing!" and remind me of how blessed I was to be in my situation.  He would repeat the importance of the airline safety drill of "putting on your own oxygen mask before trying to take care of everyone else".
While the children were in school I would visit with retired friends, and eventually, with my mother in her last years at the nursing home.  I was free to spoon feed her lunch and amuse her cohorts with a song or a borderline-appropriate joke or two.  I got to learn what really mattered.  After a year of emptying out my routines, children off to college, Mother and Flanagan and Webb passing away to where they don't need me, I'm filling up my life with other things.  But I have learned to appreciate the sheer luxury of sitting with a hot cup of tea and counting my blessings.  And on this sunny, bird-filled day, I gently remind you to stop and do the same.

Today is a day with sharp edges.  One year ago today my dear friend, writing buddy, and passionate warrior, Jim Flanagan celebrated his last birthday.  He stopped slaying dragons when his heart failed on Labor Day, but his smile (which I felt you really had to see to believe) burns like a pilot light in my spirit.
Always engaged in life, and always bursting with an opinion on everything, especially the government and the way he felt it ignored the poor, Jim was fascinating to be with.  He was a talented writer, and not just of irascible letters to the editor.  He had a published book, but it was his poetry that I loved the best.  April is poetry month, and it was fitting that his birthday fell when the world was re-awakening.  He would fly to Chicago to a poetry conference every year and for a week immerse himself in listening to others and to his own inner muse.
This man with a doctorate in English from Notre Dame taught high school English in a very tough neighborhood in New Jersey by choice.  Nothing pleased him more than to transform a young person's life by pulling the beauty out of their soul with pliers and holding it up for them and the world to see. These kids had no idea there was a hint of poetry in them until he taught them to dig for it and revel in it and use it as a tool to express their pain and to celebrate their strength.
More proud of his Irish heritage than anyone I have ever met, he would throw open his home the weekend before Saint Patrick's Day every year and start baking Irish soda bread at four in the morning.  The smell of corned beef and cabbage permeated the neighborhood, and the laughter and Guinness flowed like the waters of the River Liffey.  On the few occasions when we were able to get down there from Boston I would lead the singing and my son would play tunes on his violin, although for the day we called it a fiddle.  The party was legendary.  I quietly ignored Saint Patrick's Day this year, and Jim would not have approved, but my heart just wasn't in it.
So happy birthday, dear friend.  You've had some company from my circle join you in recent months.  I hope you are all well and happy and singing and blissful.  I still have work to do down here, apparently, but I carry you in my heart every day and know that when I've finished my chores I'll join the party up there, and it will put even your amazing celebrations to shame.

The need to "parent" never ends.  After the usual snowstorm/airport fiasco which I've come to expect when Son #2 comes home, and having received the 3AM phone call from Son #1 who had safely landed in Seattle, I toddled downstairs and woke Son #2 from the couch and made him go upstairs to brush his teeth, wash his face, put his precious head on a newly laundered pillowcase and go to sleep.  I was feeling a little silly about this until the phone rang at 6:45 this morning and my 82 year-old father-in-law called to warn me (age 60) that I should be careful of the ice on the front stairs.

We all need to feel that our children need us.  Or that somebody needs us.  Otherwise all the mani-pedis and massages and book clubs become pointless.  Of course, it's important to take good care of and to occasionally pamper ourselves.  We deserve that, and it's good for the ego and the body and the nerves.  But I feel so much better after I've called a mourning friend and been able to make her laugh just for a moment, or shot an e-mail to a friend battling cancer to remind her that I'm praying and that she's not facing the day-to-day battle alone.  I don't think it's ego.  I think it's an awareness that we've got a job to do while we're here.  We all fall down at different points of our lives.  Our friends (and sometimes wonderful angel strangers) are usually there to pick us up.  When they fall we pick them up.  Eventually we help one another get to the other side.
As long as we don't all have our breakdowns on the same day, the system usually works, and I find it satisfying to be reminded once in a while that even though my babies are not babies any more, someone is still glad that I'm there to reach out a hand.  And I'm glad I have someone to remind me to hold the railing when the stairs are icy, even if I might have figured it out on my own.

Winter has turned into an immortal monster.  Just when you think he has gasped his last and the crocuses start to timidly peek above ground, back he comes with his arms flailing and his icy breath blowing the birds out of the trees.  It's like the dinner guest who refuses to leave three hours after the dessert has been served.  I, for one, am pretty sick of his company.

Of course the benefit of a March storm is that it never stays on the ground very long, although it will probably stay long enough to mess up Son Number Two's flight home tomorrow, something which I've started to expect from my charming snow magnet.  Spring Break, which appears to be a real misnomer this year, starts tomorrow.  Son Number One is also flying tomorrow, but he is headed to Seattle with his friend and won't be back here until next week, by which time the flowers may actually be here for real.  I'm looking forward to deep voices in the house, empty milk cartons, and the traffic of friends coming and going at all hours.  I watch in amazement as these young men float in and out of my area of vision.  Trying to retract my "mommy claws" is difficult.  They don't sleep enough, either of them.  I have no idea how they manage to do so well at school.  Nagging is pointless, but expected, so I do it but half-heartedly.  I know it will have absolutely no effect.  But what a joy it will be to have them home to nag! 
It will be the first time I've seen them in person since "Uncle Jim" passed away a few weeks ago.  They had a hard enough time when my dear Flanagan died in September, and then in November when my mother slipped away, but "Uncle Jim" had a special place in all their growing up years and they both adored him.  We need to cry together, remember together, pray together, and then celebrate.  Ritual is crucial at times like this, and then we will learn to live with the memories as a quiet companion in the background, and get on with the business of spring.

I can't see it, but I can hear it.  It's a tiny blue-gray thing with a tufted head, and even though the temperature is still in the thirties, I've thrown open the window so that I can hear it better.  It seems to be calling around to see if anyone else has arrived yet.  If ever a year needed a spring it's this one.  Now in the distance I've started hearing other types of birds joining the chorus.  Of all the things I miss in winter, including light, birdsong is in the top three.

There is an ocean separating me from where I want to be right now.  Funeral preparations proceed for Jim, who will be laid out in Saint David's Church in Mold, North Wales on Thursday evening in preparation for his Mass on Friday morning at ten, led by the Bishop.  It will be five o'clock here, and I'll be up, saying the rosary with the ring he gave me years ago, and listening to "Jerusalem" through my iPod, rocking and weeping in the ancient tradition of "keening".  Nothing will help the pain.  Still, I know that under the melting snow outside my window there are daffodils, the flower of Wales, which will emerge in a few weeks to remind me of my precious friend, and to connect me to him and remind me that it takes more than death to break the bond of love.

I find the period after a "hit" physically exhausting.  Going to the boutique and pasting on the happy face as I deal with ladies buying clothes I couldn't begin to afford and which they don't need serves to distract me, but doesn't begin to deal with the issues.  I want a bit of quiet, but that doesn't seem to be on the schedule.

It has occurred to me that I need to start cultivating younger friends or I'm going to run out.  Since I was a child I have always gravitated towards "wisdom figures".  I wept bitterly on the last day of school from the third grade right through high school.  My teachers were my first real guides and friends.  After school I would sometimes stop by for a cup of tea and then work in the garden.  While I was in college I was the weekly housekeeper for my retired eighth grade English teacher, and we remained friends until I was well into my thirties when she passed away. 

My first priest friend fell into my life when I had surgery at the age of thirteen and hit it off with the hospital chaplain.  Since then I have met and added to my list of "inner circle friends" a number of priests.  I'm not sure why.  It's not a plan.  If there's someone in a sweatshirt and jeans at a party and we have a wonderful time talking about important things, at least six times out of ten I'll find out he's been ordained.  I guess I see the human being behind the Roman collar, and treat him accordingly.  And sometimes very irreverently, which we all need once in a while to keep our feet tethered to Earth.  My husband considers the clergy part of my dowry, and he and my children have become the family that some of these men never had.  It's "win, win" until you get to today when one of them leaves and then everyone is reeling in pain. I suppose that's true any time you open your heart wide to let someone into the inner circle.  The pain is in proportion to the depth of the joy received. And over the years this family has been blessed with great joy.

There's been another tear in the tapestry of my life.  Canon Webb (aka "Uncle Jim" around here) slipped away quietly in his sleep on Sunday night after dedicating the new chapel in Saint David's Church in Mold, Wales.  Since my boys were tiny (indeed, before they were born), we would spend our summer holidays at the presbytery, using it as a launching place for exploring castles.  Every Saturday at 7:30 either I would call him or he would call me and we would catch up on the week.  There was never a birthday, Fourth of July, or Christmas that the phone didn't ring with a greeting.  We were family by choice, which, as I maintain, is the best kind of family to be. 

Scary at first, his Cambridge University accent, hard acquired after a childhood rife with poverty, could prove off-putting.  Then he would say something outrageous like, "One found that very amusing.  We laughed so hard the tears of mirth ran down our leg," and after doing a double-take to confirm that I'd heard what I thought I'd heard, we'd howl.  He introduced us to the phrase "tickety-boo" for use when things were just lovely.  The first time I saw the town of Mold I commented that it was much larger than I'd imagined it.  He replied, "Yes, but even in one's moments of most diminished sobriety, one would never mistake it for midtown Manhattan."

He was the friend of my high school history teacher, Rosemary, and I'd known him almost twenty years before we became friends.  She passed away two months after my wedding, and when he came to town to collect his things which he'd left on various visits, we mourned her death together and sealed a friendship that will last forever.  Himself and I named our second son after him, which delighted Uncle Jim.  My friends are carefully chosen and fiercely and permanently loved.  To take a third major hit in six months has been difficult.  I haven't seen him face to face since 2007, what with college tuitions and airfare costing what they do, but the bond has never faltered.  His face, intentionally stern and unsmiling, sits atop the piano and keeps me company.

Jim's funeral will be on Saint David's Day, which is Wales' equivalent of Ireland's Saint Patrick's Day.  He'll miss the field of daffodils which should be in full bloom in his garden by then.  But not a thousandth as much as we'll miss him.  Sleep well, my dear, dear friend.  And save me a good seat.

I don't like being the grownup.  The decisions we are stuck making just aren't fair.  Today I signed the form that stops my mother's feeding tube.  She is in the later stages of Alzheimer's and her body is forgetting how to swallow, so even the pureed mush she's been getting for the past year can't make it down her throat, and last night the food from the tube made her violently ill.  At 89 it's time to throw in the towel.

She spent most of the day sleeping, but when she woke she was cheerful and glad to see us (whoever she thought we were).  I'd like to think she recognized me and my sisters and their families, although I'm not really sure.  But I sat next to her bed for six hours knitting a totally unnecessary and poorly-executed scarf for my son, and as I knitted I had a lot of time to think.  I remembered her sleeping across the foot of my bed when I was seven and had the measles.  I remembered her throwing her fake fur coat over my bed in the winter because we didn't have central heating until I was fourteen.  I remembered her dealing with the deaths of her two sons and her firstborn grandchild and her husband. I watched her cope with legal blindness for the last twenty years.  This is a strong woman.  It was so hard to realize that she's been strong for long enough.  It is selfish for me to wish to prolong her time with us.

Is anyone ready to let go of a mother, regardless of age?  I am lucky to have had her for so long, I know, with all her quirky ways.  Death could come in a day or maybe a week, but it's coming, and I am leaning on all my faith to face it.  And unlike Dylan Thomas with his father, I pray that she will "go gentle into that good night."

Nothing has changed.  There are still daily trips to the nursing home to see my mother, and every evening when he comes home from work Himself and I drive eight miles to make dinner for his mother who is also suffering from dementia, and whom his dad insisted on bringing home.  Flanagan remains dead.  I remain unemployed.  The boys' rooms are still empty while they cram their heads and souls with high-priced knowledge.  The air-conditioners are still in the windows as Hurricane Sandy approaches.  I haven't been to Weight Watchers in three weeks. Christmas is less than two months away.  Why, then, did I wake this morning with such a peaceful heart?  The weight which was crushing my spirit just a few days ago has been lightened and I can only think of one explanation.  Somebody out there is praying for me.

In polite society we're not supposed to talk about religion, politics, or sex.  Well everyone seems to be blithely violating the second tabu with a vengeance, so I'm not uncomfortable with shattering the first.  For those of you who don't believe in the power of prayer, I'm sorry.  It happens to be real, however, so for today you will have to cope.  Or skip this blog.  I can tell when someone is praying for me.  And if you get quiet enough, a difficult thing to do in a world like this, you will feel it when someone prays for you.  So whether Romney or Obama wins, we'll be fine.  And something about Dear Flanagan's passing has moved me from "believing" that our spirits don't die to absolutely "knowing" it, although I couldn't tell you why.

I don't believe in fairy tale endings.  Life is probably holding another nasty ace or two up its sleeve, maybe as soon as today, so whoever you are (and I suspect there is more than one) please keep those prayers coming. They make a difference.  I feel them.  And I need them.  We all need them.  I'm sending mine up for you as you read this.  Thank you.