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Holiday Letter
Dec. 15th, 2018 10:42 amThis is an edited version of my Christmas letter to friends and family. I send it out with the warmest thoughts to you on DW too:
I hope you are getting some rest and chance for reflection and fun this season. It's funny; when I sat down to consider what family news I should write about for 2018, my first thought was "nothing much happened," although this was the year my dearly beloved father passed away--and our family moved to a new house. Nothing much happened… Well, a lot happened. I think what didn't happen was rest. This year has been like two full-time jobs with almost no cessation. What didn't happen was time to experience it all. And so I do sincerely hope you are all finding rest.
As to news, my father did pass away in January at 84. After a short, steep decline, both mentally and physically, he took a fall and died painlessly of a brain hemorrhage. It was his time, and it was a good way to go. My grief for him—and I think, in different way, my mother's too—has been a slow affair, mild but deep, of living into the reality of his absence. It's been a journey away from the day-to-day worries of caring for him and back into fond recollections of all he was and all we shared. (My parents were married for 53 years!) He is and will be missed. My mom is now 82 and doing well.
And, yes, we also moved. We are now living with two housemates: my son's best friend and his mom. They are good housemates, though with five introverts and one extrovert (my daughter) in the house, we do all feel the crowding. For now it's working to help everyone with expenses, and it also kept the boys in the same school when we moved.
One creative item of note: last January I made a New Year's resolution to finish my short film The Eater (begun in 2013). As I write this, that has not quite happened, but bar unforeseen glitches, I am probably about three hours of work away from it, and I anticipate having fulfilled that resolution, a little to my own surprise! I plan to show it locally and release it on YouTube.
If anything else was notable this year beneath the daily grind and news, I think it was the year I learned (began to learn) to live with climate grief, the year I turned a corner into realizing that I will watch much of the world I love die, as my father died, and that simply is. It is a thing to live with. I find often in my head these days Tennyson's words from "Ulysses":
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are…
I wish you well, wherever your journey is taking you. I wish you hope in troubled times. I wish you rest and beauty. Reach out if I can help you; I am here.
I hope you are getting some rest and chance for reflection and fun this season. It's funny; when I sat down to consider what family news I should write about for 2018, my first thought was "nothing much happened," although this was the year my dearly beloved father passed away--and our family moved to a new house. Nothing much happened… Well, a lot happened. I think what didn't happen was rest. This year has been like two full-time jobs with almost no cessation. What didn't happen was time to experience it all. And so I do sincerely hope you are all finding rest.
As to news, my father did pass away in January at 84. After a short, steep decline, both mentally and physically, he took a fall and died painlessly of a brain hemorrhage. It was his time, and it was a good way to go. My grief for him—and I think, in different way, my mother's too—has been a slow affair, mild but deep, of living into the reality of his absence. It's been a journey away from the day-to-day worries of caring for him and back into fond recollections of all he was and all we shared. (My parents were married for 53 years!) He is and will be missed. My mom is now 82 and doing well.
And, yes, we also moved. We are now living with two housemates: my son's best friend and his mom. They are good housemates, though with five introverts and one extrovert (my daughter) in the house, we do all feel the crowding. For now it's working to help everyone with expenses, and it also kept the boys in the same school when we moved.
One creative item of note: last January I made a New Year's resolution to finish my short film The Eater (begun in 2013). As I write this, that has not quite happened, but bar unforeseen glitches, I am probably about three hours of work away from it, and I anticipate having fulfilled that resolution, a little to my own surprise! I plan to show it locally and release it on YouTube.
If anything else was notable this year beneath the daily grind and news, I think it was the year I learned (began to learn) to live with climate grief, the year I turned a corner into realizing that I will watch much of the world I love die, as my father died, and that simply is. It is a thing to live with. I find often in my head these days Tennyson's words from "Ulysses":
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are…
I wish you well, wherever your journey is taking you. I wish you hope in troubled times. I wish you rest and beauty. Reach out if I can help you; I am here.
