this and that

Got up and walked this morning just as the sky was beginnning to show the light of day and the birds were waking up from their nests.
Always one of my favorite things to do and I would like to say I enjoyed it- but truthfully, I hurt in every fiber of my being...... feel like I spent the winter on the rack in the Tower of London...
Every part of me feels twisted into knots...... isn't it amazing how our insides affect our outsides...
Hopefully the knots will loosen as we move into the warm healing days of summer....

My mom had 2 cousins that were more like sisters. (Our family tree has branches in the mountains of W Va!) Mary Margaret and Mary Emma. I could never, for the life of me, remember which one was which.

I took my mom to see them in January. We spent an afternoon with old pictures, old letters, old recipies, old memories. It was a good day.

Mary ( I'm pretty sure it is Emma ) was diagnosed with AML in late March or early April. She passed away on Saturday. I am sad for my mom and sad for her family....... and it boggles my mind to think that we sat there on that Saturday afternoon, mulling over the old memories with no idea that both our lives would be torn unsunder by those same 3 letters.... Somehow I have the notion that we both walked through the same minefield and while my family is crawling out on the other side- hers took a direct hit....

Mary's daughter used the Caring Bridge website and reminded us all in her last posting to be good to the ones we love. Isn't it funny how it always takes something like that to remind us- and funny how quickly we forget....

I must get ready for work...... Walking makes me want to write, and writing makes me want to read. Thomas Lynch says that writing and reading are really just 2 sides of the same conversation....

I read Katherine Hepburn's memoirs over the weekend- and now I see that I have her "voice" in my head.... disjointed thoughts, scraps of this and that, woven together like a patchwork quilt....