Gifts

Dee in a familiar position, early AM today, cat on lap, bundled against the chill, studying the Jerusalem Bible, a gift to me years ago from my mother. Dee has read it so much and often (truly daily) that is ragged, gilt long ago worn off the pages. She has read it very much more than I would ever have.

See the grapefruit and oranges on window sills, where we've put them to keep them cool, the overflow from a full icebox. Our much anticipated box of Florida fruit from the South High School Marching Band fund-raiser came on Saturday. The picture is taken from up here where the computer and office is.

Mona, cat, receives regular love and attention from her best friend and surrogate mother.

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We receive a gift
The phone rang on Saturday. It was a call from Donna, owner of our former house, with another kindness to extend to us. She was calling from across the street down here on the Five Points, at the store of her good friends and soon-to-be tenants at 517 Arcadian, the winged fairy godmothers ofThree Sisters Spirit.

It turns out that Donna and her husband, in the renovating of the house, did not want to just paint over the growth chart we kept of our children, Lee and Erin. They wanted to preserve it and convey it to us.

It was done of pencil marks scrawled on a wall in the downstairs hall, starting from when the children were 36 inches tall until they incrementally preached their full height of 6'2" for Lee and 5'9" for Erin. Lee is a first year teacher with Teach for America in Houston, and Erin just started her new job as University Archivist at Lawrence in Appleton WI. They are fully grown; no more marks to put down by us.

As time went on, that scrawled-upon wall got covered with fresh paint, but never did we paint over the pencil-marked chart, which was getting to be monumental. We always painted up to and around it. When it came time to move, a consideration was given to taking my Milwaukee Saws-All and removing and patching that piece of wall, not to lose the record. A souvenir.
But it seemed like an affront to further weaken the loyal dwelling that sheltered this family for so long. Instead, I photographed it, but could not capture the quality of reproduction that the new owners have done.
Pictured here is the result of their tendered work. The shades of paper from the correctly-fitted and laminated jigsaw puzzle vary in tone, but maybe intentionally. The result is a work of heiroglyphic. A true artifact.

Our visitors will get to see it.

Our children will get to see it.

It will be treasured by us always, wherever we go.

Thank you! Tidings of comfort and joy