Happy Birthday, Michaela!

Tomorrow is Michaela's birthday. I have struggled mightily with what to do with this day since she has been gone. For some years, I had a group of friends who came to my house, and we would sit in a circle and remember Michaela. But time and tides ended that practice. For years after that...

Michaela, never forgotten

This is a difficult morning. It started out with a dream in which I was supposed to be giving some public address. I was in a strange place, and for some reason I couldn't shower, or wash my hair, and I had no blow dryer or straightener, so I had this huge bedhead which people...

When it hurts

On a recent blog entry, someone finished their comment with, "See you next month!" I had to think about that for a minute. Did someone think I wrote monthly blogs? Then it hit me. It's October. Next month is November. The anniversary of Michaela's kidnapping. Can I tell you how much I don't want to...

God still speaks?

I have been talking to God lately. Sometimes, you know, life just brings you to your knees, and this has been such a time for me. All the regular problems and heartaches are there, and then some other things added just for fun. Today is the 16th birthday of my little miniature pinscher, Spike. We...

It was as if a million voices cried out

I took the photo above on a trip through the detour around the California wildfires last summer. It looked like even the sun was on fire. I didn't live anywhere near the fires, although I did live near enough that the Bay Area was covered with smoke that pushed air quality into hazardous ranges that...

Loss in the shadows

Funny how sometimes you do something, and only afterwards realize that what you were actually doing was something totally different. I know this statement probably makes no sense. But I spent this morning roaming around Lake Chabot looking for my missing kitties. Someone on the street had recently trapped the cats on our street and...

Facing into the light, facing into the dark

The following is from my previous blog, and was originally published in July 2017. In nine days I will have finished chemotherapy. It has not been nearly what I’d feared it would be. The side effects were subtle. The nausea was fairly easily controlled with medication. I got one mouth sore, and my fingertips cracked...

November 20th

I watched the day dawn on November 20th, 29 years ago. I had spent the night pacing. I had spent it kneeling in front of my couch, praying, begging. I had spent it standing in my front door, gazing down the street in the direction I had seen Michaela disappear the day before, straining to...

November 18th

November 18th, 29 years ago, an eternity and yet a brief moment, marks the last happy, innocent day I spent with you, Michaela. What did we do that day? How could my memory of the day after be so sharp, but that last happy day be washed away? It was the last day of school...

November

November is flying by! Already the baby shower for my son and daughter-in-law is upon me, and trip number one by my daughter and her husband from Oregon! How will I ever get the house clean in time, and is it even possible to wrap this box? Then at the end of November is not...