The train was just a little quieter this morning, the way it was in the days and weeks that followed the towers falling, all of late September of 2001 was quiet. Even when Letterman came back on the air, and held our collective hand, and let us know we would indeed laugh again, that our broken hearts would one day heal, it was still quiet.
The man across from me on the train had a tie on with the towers on it and an eagle and a boat the looked like Columbus was sailing it. It made me want to laugh. And cry.
Reading Flannery O'Connor this morning, standing, swaying with motions of the train, I found a few lines that felt so appropriate for today.
"The way things happened, one thing after another, it seemed like time went by so fast you couldn't tell if you were young or old."
Friday, September 11, 2015
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Karla
How do you say goodbye to your mother? The person whose love was unconditional, whose advice was unsolicited, whose knowledge of life was underestimated by you for so long, til you grew up and had your own children and saw how wise and fearless and kind she truly was.
Two years ago my friends had to do just that. Their mother, the mother to so many, her own children and dozens of foster children over several decades, took her last breath. Cancer is a nasty, unfair, unrelenting disease that she fought against as good as anyone ever had. She was brave and strong and able to hang on so much longer than any doctor thought possible. She was a miracle.
Karla Scherne was many things to many people, but to me she was always the lady who lived up the street who was there, in my house, with my mother and my grandmother, the night I was born in the middle of a blizzard. She let me come into her house, eat her food, borrow her movies, swim in her pool, be in her life. She was one of the good ones, one of the very special. We lost an amazing woman two years ago today. If I close my eyes, I think I can hear her sewing machine humming away in heaven.
Two years ago my friends had to do just that. Their mother, the mother to so many, her own children and dozens of foster children over several decades, took her last breath. Cancer is a nasty, unfair, unrelenting disease that she fought against as good as anyone ever had. She was brave and strong and able to hang on so much longer than any doctor thought possible. She was a miracle.
Karla Scherne was many things to many people, but to me she was always the lady who lived up the street who was there, in my house, with my mother and my grandmother, the night I was born in the middle of a blizzard. She let me come into her house, eat her food, borrow her movies, swim in her pool, be in her life. She was one of the good ones, one of the very special. We lost an amazing woman two years ago today. If I close my eyes, I think I can hear her sewing machine humming away in heaven.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)