family

Inspiration, Poetry, and Grandmas

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I dedicated Wading through Lethe to my grandmothers, possibly the two most influential people on my life. My grandma Katherine Black was a schoolteacher who wrote poetry and lived in a log cabin in the woods. My grandmother Jackie Guerin was a watercolorist who lived on a lake and whose favorite city was Venice.

Both women embraced their identities as artists and were encouraged by their families. From an early age, I saw that creativity was a valuable activity in and of itself. Perhaps more importantly, I saw the hundreds of practice paintings my grandmother had set aside, and all the strikethroughs as my grandma searched for a better word. Patience and process.

Grandma Black and me

In Wading through Lethe, the girl in the beginning becomes a woman. At the end of the first section, she is changed by the loss of the family matriarch and goes in search of her own identity. In section II she goes to school, travels, and learns about love. In the final section of the collection, she returns home to face the ghosts of the past as well as to measure her own growth against the once-familiar landscape.

Several poems in Wading through Lethe are directly inspired by my grandmothers. However, it isn’t always clear which poem is about which grandma. As with many of the poems, a poem may be “true” even if it isn’t fact. That is, maybe things didn’t happen exactly as described (poetic license and all that), but they represent a feeling or a moment that is best conveyed another way.

Grandmother Guerin and me

My grandmother Guerin died my first semester of college, during finals week. She was the first person I’d ever lost, and the night before I’d heard the news, I dreamed about her. One of my regrets is that I didn’t go to her funeral. I still had a couple of exams to take, and I didn’t know it was okay to ask for an extension.

My grandma Black died five years later, on the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. I was in graduate school studying for a final exam when I got the news. She had been very ill, and I had already said goodbye, but I wish I had been by her side.

When they died, I knew so little. How many times I have wished for their perspective! How many times I have wished they had seen a version of me that was better, wiser.

My Grandmother Guerin always had a tin of a homemade sweets for guests, my favorite of which were her lemon bars.

A week before she died,

I ate one of her lemon bars,
thinking nothing of holding
something so delicate
it lost its shape in my hand.

I spent the night before my First Communion with my Grandma Black. Unlike in the poem below, it didn’t rain that night, but there were many rainy nights sleeping under her tin roof that I thought the world really was ending. She did scold me for my nail polish.

First Communion

The night before, Grandma made my pallet
on the couch with faded blue flowers.
Across the room, the iron-barrel stove loomed.
We learned not to touch it.

At midnight I woke. I’d never heard rain on a tin roof
and was sure what Revelation promised was true–
dark horses had come. In church we’d learned
about the foolish virgins with their oil.

I had not confessed my sins. Everyone else slept—
or were they gone? Then the rain let up.
The dark turned dim. I chopped the polish
from my nails, ashamed they were not bare.

Sometimes writing poetry is a way of dealing with regret. Sometimes it’s a search for closure. Sometimes it’s an attempt to bring the person back. Sometimes I just want to keep learning from people in them.

Publication credits:
“A week before she died” first appeared in Epiphany.
“First Communion” first appeared in Sixfold.

Changes

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Ariel and Mommy on the stoop

My husband and I recently reflected that the last seven years have been years of transition. Graduate school, job changes, cross-country moves, the death of a parent, and having a baby . . .

In 2019 it feels like we’ve landed—working at the same place, living together and in the same city in which we work. We rented for a year, hoping to finish the tiny cabin. Life, it’s no surprise, was a constant juggling act. The daycares were full, so Chuck and I alternated our teaching schedules and had students watch Ariel a few hours each week when our schedules overlapped. It was a wonderful first year as a full-time professor, and let’s just say I survived.

The cabin, among the other demands of family and work, has begun to feel like an albatross. Four years ago Chuck was driving 100 miles a day to work, and we hoped to quickly build a cabin where he could stay during the week. The two of us would rough it until we worked out the solar/water kinks. The stakes were low then, and the two of us were up for the adventure. We underestimated the task, not to mention unforeseen challenges such as Chuck falling off a ladder. With his late diagnosis of a torn bicep tendon, surgery, and months of physical therapy, we never regained our momentum, especially after I became pregnant.

In addition, these rainy years have not been kind to the low-lying delta—our land is at best muddy but more often resembles a rice paddy. It’s not exactly the pastoral scene I’d hoped for. The tiny cabin was supposed to encourage us to spend more time outside. Contending with water is bad enough without the entourage of mosquitoes that follows wherever we go. After Ariel was born we designed an addition for the cabin, but we wondered how wise it would be to sink more money into a precarious plot of land.

And let’s face it, the energy and mobility of a toddler can hardly be contained in such a space without a safe place to play outside. Had the cabin already been finished, had we been living there with our routines in place, we might have figured out how to make it work.

Ariel playing with chalk May 2019

Exploring our option felt like more of a maelstrom than a whirlwind, but to cut the saga short: we found a house we really love and bought it. We wrestled with the decision, and I’m still making peace with it. We want to finish the cabin. We want to cultivate that part us—living in the woods, being completely self-sufficient. But the decision to simply buy a house, I’ll admit, has brought relief. Ariel now spends hours outside each day playing in the back yard and making chalk drawings in the shade of our carport. We’ve also brought our three cats who’d been staying with a family member, so now we’re all back together under one roof.

Since the blog has been sporadic, the news probably feels sudden when measured against the last few posts. But the inner journey has felt long and winding, if not dizzyingly circular. I’m still measuring what building the cabin has taught me, and I’m searching for how to live by those principles.

Future cabin updates will continue to appear here, but the overall blog will now be about new adventures.

Ariel with a white cat summer 2019

Transitions and a New Year

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ariel and mommy at the tiny cabin

2018 was a year of transitions. We spent January packing and repacking suitcases for Italy, trying to balance what our rapidly-growing baby would need over the course of three months and changing seasons. One year ago today we boarded a plane to Italy. We lived on a hillside just outside of Florence in a 15th century villa with 33 students, teaching courses and taking side trips to Rome, Paestum, Capri, and L’Averna. At the end of the trip, just as spring was finally taking hold, we traveled south to visit my host family for the first time in 11 years. It was a joyous reunion with them and other friends and professors, as well as a bittersweet departure.

Sometime in March, I was offered a full-time professorship that I’d interviewed for before going abroad. I began phasing out my editing business and thinking about book orders. Chuck, too, was thinking of the upcoming academic year—he’d accepted a position in the Department of Communication to start a film major, teaching a new set of classes in film production, editing, etc.

Returning to Conway, then, was both a homecoming and a farewell. We’d been weeding out our possessions since before I was pregnant, but there’s nothing like a move to force you to make hard decisions. We gave away furniture to family and had a big garage sale. We left our home semi-furnished for our renters, and there’s still a big, bad back closet of stuff we need to go through. It’s like the pink spot in The Cat in the Hat—it keeps getting pushed around from one part of the house to another. One day, maybe, it’ll vanish.

In July we moved an hour up the road to a two-bedroom apartment on Harding’s campus. The cabin is now only four miles away and living there is still our ultimate goal. But without daycare for Ariel, it has been convenient to be on campus to trade off watching her with my husband. A couple days a week when I finish my last class, Chuck hands her off to me to go teach his afternoon and evening classes. Ariel—always ready for an adventure—loves outings in the stroller. She lights up when she sees the students from our Italy trip, some of whom even babysit for us.

Ariel turned one at the end of September and we used the opportunity for an Italy reunion. A week later Ariel was walking, and she hasn’t slowed down since. That has dramatically reduced the amount of work I can do from home—now, at 16 months, she is into everything. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s doing everything she can to figure out this world and how it all works.

ariel in the reading chair

If 2018 was a year of transition, then perhaps 2019 will be a year of arrival, of becoming. Many times in 2018 I did not know where I would find the strength for the task ahead. The checklist of things that had to happen seemed impossible in the time allotted. And yet here we are. More than once I cried out of sheer exhaustion, so one of my resolutions this year is to build in more time for R&R. But more than that, I want to live in a mindset of slowing down rather than speeding up. I’ve never trusted that I could accomplish what I need to get done by slowing down; now I think that may be the one thing I’m meant to learn. Like faith, I may not be able to see it until I’ve lived its truth, and even then I may not believe it’s possible.

Chuck has been out to the cabin a few times. The rain barrels are full of water; the bathroom has a stack of tile waiting. We’d like to be done ASAP, but we’re also happy with our current living set-up. We want to add onto the cabin so Ariel can have space to move around as well as a private room of her own. But for now we want to finish the “tiny” cabin and camp out there on weekends as we perfect the amount of water and solar power we need.

Next week Chuck is taking a group of students to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, and we have a couple other trips in the works later in the year. Mainly we are looking forward to settling into our teaching positions, watching Ariel grow, seeing good movies, reading great books, and spending time with the wonderful people in our life.

Pregnancy & Ancestry

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Midway through my pregnancy, I ran across an antique necklace in my jewelry box and felt compelled to wear it. Only after I had clasped it around my neck did I remember it had been my great-great grandmother’s. I didn’t know much about the woman whose necklace I wore—not even her first name. My grandma always referred to her simply as “Grandma Fischel.” I do know this: she was very dear to my grandma, having helped raise her.

Grandma Fischel antique necklace

Shortly after my great-great grandfather returned from WWII, my great-grandmother became pregnant with their fourth child. While she was caring for her three children under age five, my great-grandfather left her for another woman, who was also pregnant with his child. My great-grandmother, the toughest woman I have ever met, and who will be 100 this January, bought a motorcycle and went to work. A single, divorced mother working several jobs to support her children was not so common in the late 1940s. One might even call it a scandal.

My great-great grandmother was well into her years by the time she moved in to help take care of her grandchildren. The house had two rooms, a parlor/kitchen and a room where everyone slept. Despite the hardship of those years, my grandma always spoke fondly of that time. Of course, as a child she was somewhat shielded from the pain of the adult world. Still, her happiness says a lot about “Grandma Fischel” and the special person she must have been.

My daughter Ariel, now just over a year old, is the sixth generation from Grandma Fischel. I ran across my grandma’s memoir a couple weeks ago and finally looked up my great-great grandmother’s name. Florence.

But I learned more than that. My great-great grandfather died when she was pregnant with my great-grandmother, her ninth surviving child. I can’t imagine the loss of her beloved (as well as provider and protector) on top of the strain, vulnerability, and emotional rawness of being pregnant. Florence’s life, of which I know so little, was fraught with difficulty from then on, as she cared for her newborn and struggled to support the four other children still at home. Then years later, after surviving that hardship, she saw her youngest in a similar crisis and came to her aid. She knew what to do.

It is no surprise, then, that I was drawn to her necklace. Pregnancy, though natural and beautiful, is also uncertain. The health of the mother or child could change at any moment due to any number of factors. Nothing is guaranteed. It’s easy to forget that I had those fears now that everything has turned out fine. At the time, the necklace helped me draw on the strength of those who had come before.

I have her necklace, and now I know her name.

Italy: Family, Food, Festivity – Part II

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Friends and family have been asking: “What was the best part of your trip?” As expected, the sites were mind-expanding and the food tantalizing. But the next time I visit Italy, not much will have changed along those lines. So my answer is: “The people.” We spent three months with sweet and enthusiastic students, faculty, and staff and made side visits to see Italian friends and family.

 

My Italian professor from high school, with whom I’ve been in contact for nearly twenty years, came up to the villa to speak on Machiavelli’s The Prince. His son, Paolo, a documentary filmmaker, Skyped in to discuss his film Terra di Transito (Land of Transit) about the immigration crisis in Italy. When we went to Rome, we met them for an incredible authentic Roman meal at Giggetto in the Jewish district near the Porticus Octaviae. The next day I had lunch with my high school friend and her husband, and we took a long afternoon walk along the Roman aqueducts in the Archaeological Park a few blocks from their home.

 

 

Our semester wound down with a trip to the Casentino Valley. Of all the rainy days to have, this was the best: beside a roaring fire in the common room of the Castello di Porciano, a restored Medieval castle Dante once stayed in that is now a hotel and museum. The students were studying for their final exams; I was preparing for my last class on Petrarch; and Chuck was keeping Ariel entertained.

 

After leaving the castle we headed to Poppi, where we toured one of the most intact and intricate castles I’ve ever visited, complete with a library containing 14th century copies of Dante’s Divine Comedy (no pictures allowed). From there, our bus wound through the mountains to La Verna, where St. Francis is said to have received the stigmata (and where we saw his 800-year-old blood-stained robes). More things added and checked off my bucket list.

 

At the end of our semester abroad, we made our way south to the town of Ferentino to see my host parents. This kind and generous couple hosted me for an academic year when I was in high school. I hadn’t seen them in 11 years. My host sister flew in from London and rode down from Rome with my other host sister and her two eight-year-old twin girls. We had a weekend of fun and then my host brother and his wife joined us for Sunday lunch.

 

Ariel was delighted to meet the twins, who, like her, had Micky Mouse pajamas. We enjoyed fresh veggies from my host father’s garden as well as my host mother’s homemade pasta and famous ricotta pie. (My mouth is watering just remembering it.) Sadly, their fruit and olive trees were scorched by a hard freeze–it seems Tuscany wasn’t the only part of Italy that endured a bitter winter.

 

While in Ferentino, I also reconnected with my professors and had dinner in the historic town of Alatri, inhabited for nearly 4,000 years. The huge stones of the acropolis, placed without mortar, were legendarily believed to have been stacked by Cyclopes. We enjoyed a rich meal from 9 to midnight while Ariel slept peacefully in the pram.

 

Saying goodbye to such great people was the hardest part of this trip. I am more aware than ever of the incomparable joy and fulfillment of having a good meal with good people. We have tried to maintain this spirit since being home, not wanting to take anyone or anything for granted.

It’s been a whirlwind summer, though–Chuck worked on the cabin until June, and then we began the slow process of packing up our home and looking for an apartment to rent until we can finish the cabin. I have been hired at Harding University as a Professor of English, so we definitely didn’t want to continue commuting 100 miles a day. We’ll miss our friends and family in Conway, but living close to work means more time with Ariel and less stress.

The Italians have an expression, “piano piano,” or “little by little.” We may not be in the cabin yet, but we’re going from 2500 square feet to a two-bedroom apartment. We’re storing some heirlooms and other keepsakes we’ll have to go through at some point. But the more we let go, the greater the value of what we decided to keep, and the more headspace we have for old memories and the new ones to come.

Trimming the Tree. . . and Our Book Collection

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Last year, after a rodent family bunked up inside the Christmas tree storage bin, our tree rained turds when I opened up the branches. The artificial tree, at nearly 25 years old, had lived a good life, even though the stand had been broken for years and we had to stabilize the tree using a trash can full of rocks.

We had thought we’d be living in the cabin this Christmas, so we didn’t worry about catching any post-Christmas sales on trees. A strand of solar powered lights sounded like a fun and surprisingly affordable way to “spruce” up a thorny Bradford pear in the absence of a good old fir tree.

But as we are still in our old, drafty, much-loved house, and since we needed to purge some books, we decided on a book tree. I didn’t construct it alone–a good friend with experience and a knack for balancing books is why it’s still standing on our unlevel floor.
It was harder but more fun than anticipated, and other than the nice leather-bound books and the Jane Austen tree topper, it’s made up of books we are getting rid of. Some of the books are duplicates, some we had read but did not intend to again, and others are only a library or a click away should we regret our parting. It’s only about 300 or so of the roughly 1800, but it was a serious start.
Last year I culled our Christmas decor, and this year less is more. We kicked off our holiday movie list with Charlie Brown, a reminder that it’s not outward appearances or commercialism that make meaning. We felt it was a fitting first movie for our little Ariel.

Tiny Baby, Tiny Cabin?

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Ariel Dianna joined the Bane clan on September 24th. She was healthy and bright-eyed.

Though inconvenient for me, Ariel entered this world with one arm fist-pumping à la Breakfast Club. Or Superman. I hope it’s a sign she’s tough, or at least resilient. “Ariel” means “lioness of God,” and Dianna was the Greek goddess of the hunt. We purposely chose powerful names. The first part of my name, “Paul,” means “small,” and “ette” is a diminutive form also meaning “little.” Effectively, my name means “teeny weeny” or “itsy bitsy.” Granted, my original surname was “Guerin,” or “warrior,” so I was fine being little if it meant I was a fighter. “Bane” means “poison.”

“Dianna” was also my mother-in-law’s name, and when we saw Ariel for the first time we knew it fit.

For the past eight weeks life has been wonderfully upside-down. My sleeplessness during pregnancy almost prepared me for what was to come.

What I did not expect was how hard breastfeeding was going to be. It was a test of my strength and tolerance to pain. What was worse, Ariel wasn’t gaining weight and was probably burning more calories trying to eat than she was taking in. The pediatrician’s nurse suggested I cut her off after twenty minutes of feeding so that she wouldn’t use me as a pacifier. I immediately hired a lactation specialist from Arkansas Family Doulas. She was at my door the next morning.

I relay this story in case it might help someone else out there. The lactation specialist gave me a lot of good advice, and she also discovered Ariel’s tongue tie. The piece of skin under Ariel’s tongue grew too far toward the tip—it limited her movement, which made sucking difficult if not impossible. While tongue ties are more common than you might think—somewhere around 10% of babies have them—they often go undiagnosed. The hospital lactation specialist couldn’t legally tell me since the hospital does not allow her to make a diagnosis. My pediatrician’s office did not check, though they were sure to tell me how to prevent Ariel from developing a flat head from being laid on one side too often.

Options for fixing the tongue tie: scissors or use a heat laser. Both are painful. The lactation specialist got me an appointment with Dr. Alex Hamilton, a dentist out of Bryant, Arkansas who uses a water laser. My OB was incredulous of a laser not heat-based. So maybe it’s technically not a laser. In any case, the beam displaces the water molecules in the skin to sever the connection. No blood. No pain. The tissue evaporates. If this tool were made on a large scale, you’d effectively have a human vaporizer as seen in science fiction.

Ariel - tongue tie procedure

We did stretches and massages with Ariel for three weeks to ensure that the skin did not reattach. She also had to relearn to eat. As Dr. Hamilton put it, imagine that your arm is folded and tied for a month. Once it’s loose it’ll take some time for control of movement to return.

Not only was I pain free, but Ariel began gaining weight soon after the procedure and is now over 11 pounds. I am so thankful to have had the resources as well as support from family and friends to make breastfeeding possible. I have talked to women of all ages who have shared similar experiences—one of their children inexplicably struggled to nurse or caused pain/damage. Many of the women never knew the cause and now wonder if a tongue or lip tie was the culprit. (For many people, the skin will eventually stretch once talking begins, so it can be hard to tell whether there was a problem in infancy.)

On the whole things are going well. Ariel generates more laundry than the entire household combined. We’d be swimming in clothes in the tiny cabin. Nevertheless, finishing the cabin and living there is still “the plan” (though I hear the echo of Robert Burns’ “best laid plans of mice and men”).

In January we leave for Italy, where we’ll be thrust into a minimalist lifestyle—living out of suitcases in a hotel-sized room in a 16th century villa just outside of Florence. We’ll be there twelve weeks, during which time the weather will change and Ariel will grow. Packing will be a challenge. We’ll have to purchase some things when we arrive as well as leave other things behind. Right now we have lots of hand-me-down gadgets and seats; there we’ll learn to improvise.

At the same time, the villa provides our meals and does our laundry, so certain aspects of daily life will be easier. And fingers crossed that we have Ariel trained to sleep through the night at that point. Right now each night is a toss up.

We’ll be back in April—just in time for nice cabin-finishing weather. Eventually we’ll want to add on—or possibly have a slightly larger cabin built with the current one as a guest cabin.

Who knows? I’m tired of predicting the future, as nothing has gone as expected so far!

Tiny Cabin…for Three?

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Baby ultrasound picture

That’s right. Life is full of wonderful surprises. I’m nearly six months pregnant.

Although we’d talked about having children of our own off and on over the twelve years of our marriage, we haven’t always been on the same page. Nevertheless, when I became pregnant last July, we were overjoyed. All of the concerns we had felt insignificant compared to the new life we had made together.

Eight weeks later, I had a miscarriage. It happened just before Chuck’s bicep tendon surgery and in the midst of bad news regarding his mother’s cancer. That time is a blur for me, except for the gestures of love and support from close family and friends who helped us through.

After all that we knew we wanted a baby. We also knew we hadn’t figured out the details yet. And what about the tiny cabin?

For awhile I was still going to the land, insect repellent ready, but sheer determination only goes so far with a little one kicking inside. I listened to my body, which meant a good bit of my time was spent sitting in the shade and reminding Chuck to hydrate. We made progress surely but slowly. At first, I thought of the baby as adding pressure to the mix of all that we need to get done. Recently, however, I realized that was the wrong way to think about the new and exciting changes.

I’m due at the end of September, and there is still much to be done on the cabin which will require minor and major purchases—including an A/C system. Although our original move-in date was August 2017, I have decided that a hot cabin away from my doctor and family while I’m eight months pregnant may not be what’s best for me. And after the baby is born, I’ll want to be in my well-established nest near my mother, who has vowed to help me in the difficult first few weeks.

And if things weren’t adventurous enough, we will be teaching in Italy in Spring 2018 (baby in tow). That also takes the pressure off of finishing the cabin by the time school starts.

So we’ve taken a deep breath. We’ve set new goals.

We would like to make headway on the bathroom by the end of summer. Having a bathroom (and hopefully shower) will make working and staying at the cabin more convenient for obvious reasons while we continue finishing the kitchen, the living room shelves, the floor, and the loft. And, possibly—eventually—a baby room off the back. We’ll see.

Family Christmas and funeral

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On November 5th, forty-two members of our family gathered for an early Christmas celebration. From her hospital bed in the living room, Dianna instructed the young children (as she was so well-known for doing) in the rules of dirty Santa.

Everyone cried when it came time for the carols, but she was enjoying the singing so much that we managed through the tears.

It was a tiring day for her, but it actually left her energized. For our part—the immediate family—the day left us feeling loved and supported, both by the family who drove hours to be there and by the dozens of people who brought dishes for the meal.

Less than two weeks later, Dianna slipped from us, or as I keep reminding myself, was released from her suffering.

The funeral service was beautiful—she received the honor she deserved; and in the church packed to standing-room only, we shared in laughter and catharsis.

As our procession left the church, a man walking down the road paused and took off his hat.

The drivers sharing the road, however, were not so solemn or respectful. Though we had a funeral escort, and though our procession stayed in the right lane of the freeway, a large truck tailgated our car for several miles and then floored it around us. I would say the driver was oblivious, but our vehicle was directly behind the hearse, which was directly behind the escort with flags.

We did not have a police escort for one of the traffic lights. The escort leading the procession drove through the intersection, and a few cars later the light turned red. Rather than allow the rest of the procession through, cars began honking and trying to cut off the procession.

I guess they had somewhere to be, and fast. But, if anything, pausing for the mourners of the dead is a reminder of where we’re all headed, and how little the cares of today really matter.

flowers-sunset

HOMELESS MAN

After the graveside service, the family gathered for a meal in a church across town. The church door was propped open as a gesture of welcome. Incidentally, the homeless man who had taken off his hat two hours earlier was passing by and asked if he could use the restroom. When he walked in to find our family eating, he was clearly embarrassed and tried to leave without being seen.

Of course, someone stopped him and told him to fix a plate. He declined, again embarrassed, and tried to back toward the door. We assured him, however, that it was what Dianna would have wanted.

He made a plate and sat at a table away from everyone. We couldn’t allow that. Instead, one of the people who had prepared the meal asked him to sit at their table, and it seemed he had a good time. One of the church elders and his wife quietly went around to each table and took up a collection to help him on his way to Colorado, letting him know the gift was in honor of the great lady whose life we were celebrating that day.

Two hours earlier, this man took off his hat to our funeral procession having no idea that across town he would be sharing a meal with us. He showed more respect for our family than the other strangers sharing the road, and I could not help but think of him as a man who, in spite of whatever difficulties had led him into homelessness, had not forgotten something important about our human condition.

Life is strange for us right now. We have a void that simply cannot be filled. But we do have stories, and in every act of kindness given or received I think of Dianna.

dianna-bane-flowers

 

The tiny cabin’s long and winding road

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tiny-cabin-11-3-16

Chuck’s arm is healing slowly but surely. He is still not allowed to lift anything, and his 24/7 brace prevents him from extending his arm more than 110 degrees. Four times a day is a physical therapy routine including ten minutes each of heat, massage, stretching, and ice. The physical therapist says everything looks the way it should, and we hope to get a good report from the surgeon next week.

Despite Chuck having only one usable arm, we planned a cabin work day with a friend who has construction experience. Our goal: to finish hanging the doors and install the great window.

But a few days before our ambitious plan, we received some bad news: my mother-in-law’s scan showed that the cancer had progressed to the extent that nothing more could be done. In truth, we had been suspecting the worst based on how she’d been feeling. More than ever, the cabin felt like it could wait.

As painful as it was, we did as she said and took down the family Bible with the funeral plans she had written out years ago.

Let me just say that Dianna Bane is the kindest person I’ve ever known. When someone has a baby and Dianna calls to share the good news, she doesn’t say, “He was born.” She says, “He’s here!” She celebrates the presence of a new life, which is the way she meets everyone—acknowledging their humanity and their integrity, speaking to the person’s best self.

She’s generous, steadfast, and abundantly loving. She brings joy to a room. She is a peacemaker. Especially lately, she’s been long-suffering and patient.

And so we were all quick to answer her one request: to gather both sides of the family and have Christmas early. From the newest addition to the family born September 9th—Gus Bane Parsley—to her great-nephew Robbie Dixon briefly home on military leave, her family will gather tomorrow for a Christmas with autumn leaves still hanging on.