Hail and Farewell

BD Photo 2016
Grace and Larry Ward 

I thought each call would be easier than the previous, but it’s just the opposite. Perhaps my numbness is fading, and my grief is sinking in. Or perhaps I’m just tiring of sharing with others the reality that my mother has died — tiring of sharing the circumstances and the details of how we’re all reacting, what we’re planning, how we feel.

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Wisdom And the Crossword Puzzle — Family Vol. 6

My father played hockey in his teens, on rock-hard New Hampshire ice, and he continued playing until he was 70, and he would have continued playing had he not lost a battle in front of the net a dozen years ago, fallen backward, hit his head, and lost consciousness. His doctor told him to quit the game — quit the battles.

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A Sadness Revisited

You don’t need to have lost a child at Sandy Hook.
You don’t need to have lost a close friend at Sandy Hook.
You can still recognize John Donne’s universal message – a meditation he wrote nearly 400 years ago – that each passing affects us all, as we are all members of the continent, all part of the main.

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So Deutsch wie mein Großvater

ccw & roses germany
My brother in Germany.

For the English, scroll down.
Für die Englisch, nach unten scrollen.
Special thanks to Steffi Smarsly for translation assistance.

Als ich 8 war, lebte ich im Norden Deutschland, im Schatten von Hamburg – eine der Wohnungen meiner Vorfahren. Mein Zuhause wurde dann Deutsch. Meine Schule war Deutsch. Mein Essen war Deutsch. Meine Freunde waren Deutsche. Ich war Deutsch. Continue reading “So Deutsch wie mein Großvater”