Brisa

I love Sundays because even though I'm retired and each day is similar to the next Sundays is always a grateful break in the days continual march of my mortality. The day when I can lean back in my chair, looked outside and enjoy the day (regardless of clouds, rain or snow are cloudless blue skies loaded with promise). In days past I enjoyed getting up padding around in my wheelchairs, making coffee especially making breakfast when I had a family the listening to NPR or if I'm feeling really blue-collar turning on the television/screen and watching local weather and news. If the weather's inclement all watch a movie maybe I do a little texting or messaging but Sundays are just a day to rest, enjoy and perhaps contemplate life.

I sometimes choose Sundays to fulfill a task I've been contemplating. Today was a day such as that. I was delighted earlier in the week to receive a handwritten letter from my youngest granddaughter, Brisa. What a delight! Brisa is one of the letters I write every month. I don't really expect an answer—however I'm sure all grandparents want to see some sort of recognition from the grandchildren—I write Brisa and my other granddaughter Riley for me. I like having the rigor to have someone to write to and I firmly believe that every generation, especially now, needs to develop the skill of writing letters, not texts, not messaging and not even using the wonderful/brilliant tool of visiting over the Internet face-to-face thanks to cams one sort or another. The skill set of writing I think will always be important and then there's always delight in receiving the written word from someone who took the time to break the routine and focus on you for however long it took them to scribe the document. I got one such document this week and really it's made all the difference. Brisa even made a request and enclosed a bookmark she made for me. Brisa would like a few more bookmarks And I think bookmark blanks so she can make some more bookmarks. This is of course super exciting to me because I make bookmarks and now she wants to make bookmarks is that too cool or what?

Brisa wears glasses (like me). She has brown hair, brown eyes, adorable cheekbones (all like me). I guess I would be totally honest with myself perhaps these gifts are from her mother who I think kind of looks like me… A lot. But to see the generational skip and jump is pretty special. Because, Shelley – the mom – is very much like me in writing, thinking and being. However, Shelley is also strongly herself is defined yourself as such which is given me great pride. However seeing these traits, which may or may not be mine, handed down to the next generation totally excites me. I just hope she retains the good qualities and not the bad of which I have many. I hope she focuses on things better than I, keeps track of things better than I and always remembers where she puts her glasses and more importantly keeps her glasses somewhere not easily lost. Not that it matters but I kind of like the idea of hopefully positively influencing my youngest granddaughter… Brisa