Yes, Grandma is once again gifted with a baby grandson, this one making his appearance on Valentine’s Day! No doubt a signal that he’ll be as much of a heartthrob (and/or heart-breaker) as his big brubby and his Daddy, whom I often describe to people as one of…

The Few, The Proud, The Incredibly Good-Looking. Yup, he’s a Marine. Seems to like it okay, will soon hit the decade mark with the Corps. We’d been hoping he would be stationed nearer, but it seems they like him too much where he is now. Welcome to the world, grandson #7!!! I hope it treats you well, and that you will spring lightly along your journey.

Proud and happy as I am to report another grandchild in the growing ranks, it’s been a rough couple of months on the loss side of the scale too. First a friend succumbed after a hard-fought five year battle with ovarian cancer. Days later a another dear friend discovered he had cancer of the spine. He went out relatively quickly, which is just as well with this particular cancer. Yet another old friend fought his cancer hard, checked out last night.

This photograph is of a Christmas season show for our popular New Vaudeville Night in Florida nearly 20 years ago. The weekly fun-fest was sponsored by our friend Rick whose kite shop served as our anchor, and who died in April of last year.

There on the left is our son – who died in 1992 – as EB [Easter Bunny] wearing a Santa suit and being berated by the three characters on the right for trying to muscle in on Santa’s extended holiday money-making gig. EB only gets one day a year, and since he’s laid off in December anyway, thought he’d pick up some extra bucks filling in for Santa at some mall or shopping center – or New Vaudeville Night.

Second from left is our friend Gus, who on this occasion is Santa’s son Solomon Claus, filling in for the old man by gathering up the Christmas wishes of a host of lovely young women in the audience that night. Gus died a few weeks ago. Next to him is the show’s emcee, Nelson Nermal the Nerd, who is the only one still kicking. And on the right is our friend Jerry, dressed as Uncle Sam who is also there trying to muscle in on Santa’s gig. Jerry died last night [2-18]. No wonder we’re feeling really old lately (and not just because it’s February)!

I asked my Mother-in-Law a loaded question once when she was losing her dearest friend since childhood to cancer. This was before our own loved ones and peers started dropping like flies. If we reach a time when more of our loves are on the other side of death’s veil than are still present in the world, does death start looking less like an enemy and more like a friend? She didn’t answer, which was probably wise of her. More than two decades later I am beginning to recognize that I’d known the answer all along. Just dreaded the experiencing of it, I guess.

Through these sad weeks filled with painful deaths and significant losses, one event serves to reinforce the lesson learned. Dearly beloved Great-Aunt Melba died too, a week ago Monday. Peacefully in her sleep, age 96. No fear, which is just the way she’d lived.

Seems when contemplating life and death on planet earth from this end of things that there’s a lot we could fear if we were inclined to do so. Fear for the newly-arrived, for what their world will be, how they’ll make their way in it, what suffering they will no doubt see. Fear for the checking-out, wondering if this veil of tears was all there is, or if it really is just a sort of grade school for something more waiting for us once we’ve shed our cages of gross matter and moved “on” – wherever “on” might be. And at times like these, I usually end up right back where I started on the never quite objective contemplation…

Being afraid doesn’t generally prevent people from being born, and it’s never stopped people from dying. Every single human here to wonder (and/or fear) gets both conditions whether we want them or not. So I’m siding with Aunt Melba on this one – No Fear.

Joyful greetings, young grandson! Tearful good-byes, my dear ones.

Live-in daughter and #1 grandson left for Florida just over a week ago. She’s signed on to help an old friend near Gainesville undergoing radiation and chemo for cancer, he’s working for his Dad to earn money for college and maybe a car. They’ll go to Oklahoma from there at the end of August to visit great-grandma, he’s put off enrollment until January.

Which is actually a good thing, I hear. College can be incredibly expensive, and often high school grads don’t do well if they start with just two months’ worth of break. Spending two years in academic transfer courses at the community college (all just basic requirements, straight transfer Junior year to UNC) can be a mellower introduction to college life and save a bundle.

The way it works here is that the community college is geared to cost a few hundred dollars less than the basic available Pell Grant for full-timers. Those few hundred dollars can be used for books and fees and supplies. Now, you can’t get your Pell Grant until after you’re accepted and registered, and you can’t register until you pay tuition. So to get started we and his Mom are somehow going to have to come up with the thousand or so dollars it’ll take for him to start. The grant will come in about the time his first semester is over, to be used to pay for his next semester. And we figure it’ll be January before we’ve saved that much.

We all know it’s very expensive to go to college. Daughter is still repaying her own student loans! So we’re hoping that once grandson’s on track in the system, grants and scholarships will cover the bulk of costs. Of course, in the current free-falling economy a college degree isn’t worth much (daughter has been working retail for peanuts these last few years because that’s all the jobs available). It’s just that in ANY sort of stratified economy a college degree is better than no college degree. The world – and this “artsy” region – simply doesn’t need another starving artist.

At any rate, Grandma’s just now bid so long to company that arrived just hours after the kids left, so this is Day-1 of MY vacation! No bad B Zombie movies too loud day and night in the background, no ten tons of laundry to do every day (I think they just throw clean clothes back because they’re too lazy to re-fold them), no big meals to prepare, no constant worrying about who’s coming, who’s going and who’s lost in the woods somewhere. Aaaaahhhhh… now if I only had a hot tub…

My beautiful little Sunshine seemed quite delighted to meet her Grandma (me!) over Memorial Day weekend, and Grandma was sure delighted to meet her! At just over two months old she’s fat and happy, quite mellow for a wee thing who doesn’t much like being so little. As long as she’s kept close and high enough to look big people in the eye, she’ll let loose that dazzling smile and tell stories for as long as we’ll listen to the coos and gurgles and guffaws.

My grandsons are pretty much grown (#1 just turned 18, #2 turns 18 in July), it’s a little hard to remember that they were ever that small. #1 was even smaller, just six and a half pounds when he made his appearance in the world. Miss Sunshine already understands in no uncertain terms that she is the Princess of the Universe, and fully expects deference from all to that lofty title. Which, of course, her parents, grandparents, aunts and cousins are all most eager to provide in abundance!

#1 grandson surprised me by walking out to the car when they arrived, taking the baby confidently from Mom, and proceeding with her to the house talking all the while about why he’s going to call her “CoolAss Mojo” no matter what anybody else says her name is, and imparting cousin-like advice on what the world is like and how truly cool it is. It reminded me of the fact that my husband and I were just 18 when our daughter was born, and I had to realize that it probably won’t be too long before I get to welcome a GREAT-grandchild into the family. Whoa!!!

I did manage to finish that quilt finally. It wasn’t as big as I’d have liked, so I batted it double-thick and used pink fleece on the back side to compliment the purple I used around the squares on the front (because I started it before I knew Sunshine was a she, and purple is what I had on hand). Daughter was very pleased, and that’s what counts.

With gas prices going up fast we may not see them again for awhile. We’d go north to see them, but must go west to visit Mom-in-Law this summer instead – if we can afford even that. She’ll be 86 in August, the only parent we’ve got left, and we’ve got to make some arrangements so she won’t be living alone. Grandson #2 will be coming up to see us in July (and will hopefully NOT tangle with a copperhead this time), and #1 is going to have to go to the local community college at least his first year because costs at the university have doubled since he applied.

Perhaps things economic will get better soon. Despite being old enough to get jaded, new life always tends to make things look a lot more hopeful. All I know right now is that Little Miss Sunshine is sure happy to be here, and Grandma is sure happy to meet her!

In the immediate family circle are O’Sheas and Coins and O’Cains and O’Rourkes and other names so blatantly Irish nobody could confuse the issue by the number of Rastas and Buddhists and Presbyterians and atheists (and God-Knows-Whats) in the crowd. Even though we did outnumber them. After the mass there was a photo collage presented in the fellowship hall, probably 600 people stayed to see it.

The trip to Jamaica and those tough-looking Rastas who literally carried Rick for miles into the mountains to see a holy man. The Tibetan monks and their beautiful sand mandala who were so delighted by their host’s soaring spirit. The notable artists and musicians who never passed through without spending time with Rick. The children he’d taught through the years, now grown with children of their own old enough to go to college. The beautiful red-haired boy, the courageous and determined young man, the cultural guru, the thin and frail middle-aged man who looked an awful lot like Jesus if that holy man’s eyes twinkled nearly as brightly as Rick’s.

We cried buckets of tears, but were reunited in our grief. We had too often lost touch over the decades. All past petty tiffs forgotten, love of Rick uniting us all once again as if we’d never grown apart. Then, later that evening, came the wake…

It was in the city near Rick’s house, hosted by a wonderful couple with one of those Irish names and an acre of yard. All of it put to use for this event, and all the neighbors forewarned. There were two groups of fiddlers and harpists, a stage at the other end of the yard stacked with equipment. A couple dozen notable rock and reggae musicians jammed all night off and on. A drum circle filled in the breaks. There were children lined up for the tree swing and trampoline, guarded (and herded) by teenage volunteer sitters. There were rows of tables filled with food, watermelons galore, coolers of pop and water and more beer than anybody could keep track of, magically replenishing kegs of Guinness, and a picnick table bar on the deck stocked with more kinds of wine than I could identify as well as literal cases of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey. Parking overflowed the vacant lot a few blocks away manned by volunteers with light sticks, a constant crowd of about 500 constantly shifted through the night. It was still going when we checked in, 8 hours after driving home through three states!

My friend Rick enjoyed the love of so very many people, each of whom claimed him as his/her BEST friend. He could make you feel that way even in a crowd. What we all received from him is important enough to last these generations for many generations more, and comes complete with the power to change the world. We are so blessed…

The greatest gift Rick gave to those of us who loved him is each other. Our charge now is to hang on to those ever-widening, ever-proliferating circles of love and friendship. My family’s all for it (though we won’t be moving back to the city). I think a lot of others are too.

Kiteriggers Memorial Site

Sadly, I write today about a very dear old friend who didn’t wake up yesterday (April 15). Gladly, I also get to write about another friend whose brand spanking new young son was born right about the same time our old friend died. Funny how life seems to work out that way, when tears of sorrow mingle so readily with tears of joy. I must be getting old (again… still?).

My friend Rick wasn’t supposed to live past 16, when he was gravely injured in an auto accident that killed his friend. Confined to a wheel chair from that moment on with paralysis progressing steadily, he wasn’t supposed to live past 25. We celebrated his 50th birthday just last year, so he beat the odds big time. Became a college teacher, a sage to young people and deep soul’s heartbeat to diverse creative communities. Rick was beloved by hundreds, and holds a special place in my own life as one of the most Culturally Significant human beings I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing and loving.

So it was with a sense of karmic aptness that I greeted the morning mail to find news of another big event, the birth of a fine, healthy son to another friend (I’m still trying to work out the details on an arranged marriage for Sunshine, but it might be too soon…). I don’t believe in reincarnation, but it’s humbling nonetheless to experience life’s comings and goings as such a cyclical phenomenon – the wheel just keeps on turning, even when it seems right that the sun stop in its tracks to grieve a lost light.

Kite-maker believed in the power of laughter

We’ll all get our chance to step off that wheel eventually, go wherever it is our frail bodies keep us from going while we’re here learning things that need learning, maybe teaching the little we’ve learned. It’s nice to know that the opportunities keep on coming in as those spent keep on checking out. Just as it should be.

At least 56 people died in violent spring storms across the eastern midsection of America on February 5th, the day of “Super Tuesday” voting in primaries across the country. Including Tennessee, which bore the brunt of the storms and lost the most people. Hundreds were injured. Oddly (or not), I had dreamed about tornadoes Monday night. The kind of dream where I’m standing on a rise in “big sky” country watching tornadoes off in the distance. I’m one of those people who seldom remembers dreams, but the ones I do remember tend to be weird premonitions.

My son had it too, informed us all one day when he was four that he’d dreamed something that sure enough happened just like he said it would just hours later. “I’m a psycho,” he told us quite seriously. “We know these things.” Though we of course laughed at his alliteration, this was coming from a guy who’d spent the first weeks of his life in the storm cellar – standard for April in Oklahoma. We weren’t too surprised.

Dream interpretors link tornadoes to big changes coming, though in this case it might just have been forewarning of the next day’s storms. They’re a little early this year, season doesn’t usually start until March, or get really hairy until April. But there are some big changes coming. My new granddaughter should be officially welcomed to the world by this time next month (though her Mom is really hoping for a Leap-Baby on February 29). A Democrat will win the Presidential election in November, finally ending the Cheney reign of terror. The transition from winter to spring is always turbulent, with its storms and wind. Birth can be tumultuous.

Since my state doesn’t get to vote in the primaries until May, of course it was the weather that caught my attention – there’s just something a little synchronicity-like about a tornado hitting Clinton, Arkansas while Democrats there were voting for a Clinton. The best overview of it all is on Jeff Masters’ Blog on Weather Underground. Only one other killer outbreak hit so early in the year – the January 3, 1949 storm in Warren, Arkansas that killed 60.

My husband’s most vivid childhood memory is of when a tornado ripped through his small eastern Oklahoma town when he was eight. His parents managed the downtown hotel, his grandma lived just a block behind. Told me that he went outside to pick up softball-sized hailstones to put in the freezer after the first wave of severe weather passed, thinking it was over. Then, over the hill on the south side of town, it came. Nearly a mile wide, and black as night.

Instead of talking about some “freight train” sound, he said it was deathly quiet until the world fell apart. His Dad hid under the kitchen table with his little brother, his Mom hid in a closet, and he hid under a bed on top of a hotel guest. Who, when the wind died down, was dead (along with 80 other people in the little town). The hotel was destroyed, only one wall still standing. He said the weirdest thing was that a pair of jeans was sticking right through it, the seat inside the lobby and the legs outside the building.

I think it’s terribly sad that so many died on Super Tuesday. I don’t know how many of them knew it was coming, might have been saved. Tennessee is just over the ridge to the west of us, but we somehow dodged the bullet on Tuesday that destroyed so much in our neighbor state. There is no warning system here, no sirens to go off right at dinnertime like in Oklahoma. And here in the mountains the sky’s not big – we’d never see it coming until it was here. Yet in order to hit the house it would have to be aiming for us – drop down straight on top of us – and one thing I learned growing up in Tornado Alley was that if it’s got your name on it, it’ll find you no matter where you hide. If it doesn’t, you can stand on the porch and calmly watch it go on by. That’s pretty fatalistic, I know, but it’s true nonetheless.

Still, people do love to talk about the weather. Every bit as much, they say, as people love to talk politics. So for all the big changes coming, this will be the historic year that the two topics of conversation became one for a day. I’m a psycho. We know these things!