Giant-Cell Tumor on Thoracic Vertabra #3

Setting out to write a daily topical blog without including personal reflection or family events has proven to be difficult for me. For the last seven weeks it has meant no blogging at all.

On November 18, my 29 year-old daughter Sarah, who lives in Florida, called with the alarming news of a tumor on her spine. Could I come to help her young family through her ordeal of surgery and recovery? Of course, I went---and stayed until she and her husband could manage again on their own, which meant fulltime housekeeping and childcare for my two precious grandchildren, ages 20 mos and 6 years, through the holiday season.

It's not that I didn't write during that time. Regular e-mail exchanges to keep family and friends abreast of Sarah's progress kept everyone informed and me afloat. But I am eager, now that I'm home, to take up my pencil again in the simple act of paying slow attention to the backyard. I feel surprisingly forlorn, though, and out of practice at the art. Learning that my daughter's health is to be fully restored after having feared for her life has not left me unchanged. I wonder what I will see now, as I return to backyard observation. dkm