2023 is drawing to a close. It seems like it just arrived and now it’s gone.
It was a year to remember for me. It was my first full year without Ruth. The end is a bit different than the beginning, but that’s just because her loss was still raw last December. The passage of time doesn’t necessarily make it easier, but reality sets in. You have to learn to accept the things you cannot change no matter how much you may want to.
I’ve made some new friends this year and hope to make more. You can never have too many. My best move was joining the memoir writers group in The Villages. That opened the door to publishing five yearbooks of past blog entries. I struggled with a format until I realized it might be best to record them just as they came to me. There’s no chronological order to my memories, just the order that they popped back into my brain. I’ll be printing a sixth within the next few days. They’re just for me and the kids but having them organized and printed feels good.
I took about a hundred of the blogs, rewrote them for prime-time reading and published a book. It’s not a best seller but it was never meant to be. It’s received good reviews from those who have read it, and I appreciate the words of encouragement that have come my way. My favorite was from a man who said, “I read a story, or two, each night. It feels like you’re sitting next to the bed just talking to me.”
My first royalty checks arrived this past week. They’re not big, but they’re a beginning.
I celebrate the fact that my children and grandchildren are all doing well. They’re all in a good place with people they love. The ten of us spent Christmas together for the first time in several years. Young Jackson James was the catalyst for the gathering. While we all enjoy Christmas, it looks brighter through the eyes of a child. He didn’t get to know his Nana like we did, so he’ll learn to love her through the rest of us. That’s all we have to offer.
The hippies in my life, Elizabeth, Sutton, and their two dogs, Rue and Chicklet, hosted a Christmas Eve party on California’s Doheny State Beach just south of Dana Point. Ruth’s sister, Kathy, and Sutton’s oldest brother, Steve, and his clan joined us. We ate, drank, and played games. Mostly we laughed. Sutton stopped us all at just the right time. We walked out on the sand to see the setting sun and marveled at our view.
Right on cue, three pods of dolphins swam by us. There were at least six in each group. They broke the surface putting on a show for the fifteen of us. And although I can’t be certain Ruth had anything to do with their appearance, I thought of her when they showed themselves, because they could have just as easily passed us by unnoticed.
There’s a song, “Don’t Blink”. It sums up life very well.