early on a Sunday morning...

At 5:20, the birds are already chirping and you can see the outline of the trees and hills against the sky. It's a ridiculous time to be up, but lovely at the same time. You feel as though you're the only person awake at the moment when nature starts to open its eyes.



But on this particular Sunday morning I wanted to pause right here, at the beginning of the day, and honor two women, my grandmother and my mother.



My Grandmother, Elfreda Catrina Hughes, was born on this day, May 13, in the year 1904. She dressed like a flapper in the 20s, and has lived through two world wars and the first forays into space, and she has watched the world change ever more quickly as technologies develop. She lost her husband when her two children were very small, but she went to work and did what had to be done to take care of both of them. She's lived through good times and bad, but kept her sense of humor through it all, and a delightful laugh. I don't know if she still does, but for years she began her day at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning, even well into her 80s or 90s, and so the early hour of this post is in tribute to her (although there's an excellent chance I'll go back to bed when I'm done; though I may stay up to watch the sunrise with my first cup of coffee).



Today is also Mother's Day, so I'd like to pay tribute to my mother, Diane. She inherited her mother's sense of humor and her laugh and, like her, finds the humor in the small absurdities of life (and in her children -- she thinks we're fun and funny). She's also an excellent gardner, and tends to her roses and other flowers with great care, when she has time in the midst of everything else that is going on. She is strong and tender and sometimes ornery, she knows [almost] everything, and she can tell you the home remedy or solution for just about any problem -- because she has all the books necessary to look it up, or she'll just run out to the library to find the book with the answer. She laughs easily, but you'd better watch out if she's upset. She's quietly modeled devotion and unostentatious spirituality to us, and shown us the right way to live. She's also taught us how to make the perfect cup of tea, and the importance of sitting down to enjoy your tea and a crossword at some point in the day. Crosswords keep your brain healthy ... so does Sudoku.



Thank you, both of you, for the great gifts you've passed down -- for your strength and your laughter, your kindness and your willfulness; for your sense of fun and spontaneity, and for the ability to see the possibilities in every situation; thank you for passing on your sharp intellect and capacity and love of learning for the sake of learning. But thank you most of all for loving us and putting up with the good and the bad, and believing in us despite all evidence to the contrary.