December 30th, 2018, 4:45am is when she left us. But, December 29th was the last time I stroked her forehead, the last time I held her hand, the last time I heard her voice, the last time I cuddled up next to her as I would so often do in our youth, the last night I saw her alive. Two years have passed, and I can still recount every single moment of December 29th, 2018, from the moment I awoke on that warm winter’s morning in Southern California, until 12:32am, December 30th when I made the phone call to my mom, telling her she had better hurry and get to the hospital, where I had spent hours next to my big sister, watching her labored breathing, massaging her bony legs, and laying with her when she needed a warm body next to her, for five hours straight, willingly, heartbreakingly, but oh the preciousness of those hours. The last text from Marnie came to me at 7:16pm on December 29th with the words “Come here.” She wanted me there. What a tremendous honor that, as she was fading, she remembered he little sister, who looked up to her and loved her so much, and she wanted me there. December 29th was when I rushed over to the hospital, ran to her room only to enter to one of the most heartbreaking sights I’d ever beheld; a mother saying goodbye to her […]

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Yesterday evening I was enjoying some quiet time in our “tree-house,” or so we’ve taken to calling the upper-level of our home. Perched at eye-level with the highest branches of a number of Maple trees, it is the only room in the third story of our cabin-like haven, and a perfect place to relax, work, write or think. I find myself deep in thought often these days… Thoughts about the state of the world, about life, and love, and hatred. I think about friendship and the number of friendships that the current climate has dissolved. I think about values and virtues of my loved ones and acquaintances, and how I really love trying to understand why someone believes as they do (it’s like, each person is their own little history book, and I’m one of those people who LOVES to peel back the pages and start at the beginning). Then, I often find myself crumbling into the abyss of my own mind. I internally weep for the lives that have been lost in recent months, whether from an invisible enemy or a visible one. I weep for the loss of compassion and understanding in a world of me-ness. I weep for the hardened hearts, so filled with anger, that are beating so blindly, not comprehending that other choices are available to quell that anger. When this happens, when I find myself getting lost in a wood of depressive thoughts, I […]

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