Tonight or tomorrow the ornaments will come down. The tree will go out in the trash or in the back of our lot where the fox might use it for shelter. All the holiday trinkets will be wrapped in tissue paper. They'll go back into plastic boxes, to be carried down to the basement and stored for another year. I will linger over each ornament, but one in particular will be hard to put away. This small Bichon in a stocking (above) is a very, very … [Read more...] about My Mother's Last Gift
holiday
Empty Chairs
In every life, at every holiday, there are empty chairs, reserved for the people we love who are no longer with us. This year I will look for my mother. I will expect to see her smiling over the funny trinkets in the aisles at Walmart. I will expect to hear her laugh when that stuffed snowman at the plastic piano sings, "Have a holly, jolly Christmas." I will go on thinking how I need to get a gift for her, and then I will remember, she has … [Read more...] about Empty Chairs
