Endings and Beginnings

It is 07:20 on January 2, 2011, the second full day of this new year.  It is still night outside, but the sky has lightened to a dark bluish grey.  The black silhouettes of two crows just flew past the window cawing.  Day is breaking.

This morning I boiled the kettle and savoured the faint aroma of bergamot as I poured water into the teapot.

I nursed the coals in the woodstove into the morning’s fire using the stub end of a Christmas candle to help it go.

I noticed one red bud on the potted azalea and wondered what we had done or not done to help that happen.

I checked Gmail and my mobile for messages and understood that there was likely no change in my mother's condition on the 8^th floor of the Halifax Infirmary.

I thought about the day ahead, a Sunday, and decided I would stop in for a visit even though my next scheduled bedside vigil was not until after midnight.

I wondered which of my six brothers I would see when I went in and whether or not she would be awake and present.

As I drank my tea I thought about my beloved who is still with our children in Ontario and how utterly beautiful she was when we chatted yesterday on google talk.

And about our youngest granddaughter sitting on her lap showing me the bandage from her new doctor’s kit, her dad in the background wearing the plastic stethoscope and saying, You know you can really hear a heartbeat with this.

And I thought about our lovely serious daughter who texts me for updates on her grandmother and wonders whether she should be flying down to see her as she works on finishing an application due on Friday for a doctoral program.

And my mother saying, in a clear moment last night, Oh no, she mustn’t come, she must do the application.

And I thought of our firstborn son sleeping on the couch yesterday, his back in spasm as my back used to be in spasm, being cared for by his beloved and by their beautiful girls, waiting for him to wake up to show him the pictures they made with ballpoint pens at the dining room table.

The sky has turned a uniform grey, the harbour the same, the spruces are almost black, but the trunks of the birches are bright white.  It is day now.

My mother may be reaching the end of her life, but it has been a full life.  Her seven sons, aged 52 to 67, are all alive, all well.  She has eleven grandsons, five granddaughters, and sixteen great-grandchildren, all alive, all well.  She has much to remember, much to be happy for and proud of, and many promising beginnings to dream about in her last days.

And we all begin our new years. 

I think of two longtime friends I have seen in the past few days with their newfound partners and the happiness that shone in their faces. 

I think of other good friends, some close by and some very far from here, and the enduring substance of their friendship and love.

I think of the kindness we show each other at this time of endings and beginnings. 

I make a connection between heart and hearth, the warmth of each, even though the Oxford doesn’t.

I consider this new year with its endings and beginnings and the hard times we all may face in it, but I also think of the promise and the possibility and am heartened by it.

I notice a bit of blue sky and sunlight reflected in the screen, turn off my desk lamp, and think of what I might make for my breakfast.

I am heartened by that too.

January 3, 2011: Update on my mother's condition = much improved today after several days of very serious concern.