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This evening after work, I visited my dad.  He’s 95 years old and lives in a nursing home.  Driving home, I was thinking of Maya’s connection with Pop.  Though Maya got her goofiness and silliness from her dad, I believe she got much of her wit and love for puns from my dad. When Maya…

December 2006 Dear Maya, Your life significantly changed a week ago yesterday.  I heard a meowing sound outside the kitchen as I was doing the dishes.  I called daddy to check on Merlin, as he usually doesn’t cry outside.  It wasn’t Merlin at all.  It was a skinny little kitten with matted fur, meowing its…

My dear friend Susan, sent me a message, “Are you enjoying your stay in Mexico?” “The simple answer,” I told her, “is yes. It is more complicated though.” Our family planned this trip last year. We have been gifted with traveling internationally since Adin and Maya were young. They’ve seen much of the world and…

Support has come in so many ways.  One way that I’ve been uplifted has been by saying the mourner’s kaddish each week.  At times, I go to a congregation, but most often, my dear friend Linda, gathers a minyan (a group of at least ten people) to recite the mourner’s kaddish with me.  It was…

When we chose the name, Maya, for our daughter, we learned of many derivations.  From the Hebrew, Maya is related to water.  In Greek, it means mother and in Mexico, we know of the Mayan people.  The Hindu Maya has to do with the illusion before enlightenment.  But the new Maya for me is from…

At the end of the Maya Gold Foundation’s first board meeting, we did a closing activity in which each director shared both a heart and a head connection.  One board member shared, “since Maya’s death, I have…we all have wanted to do something.  I feel a sense now, that we will be doing something.”  I…

“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give.” Francis Weller I walk and even dance on a high wire, balancing grief and gratitude. There are…

Silk. It is as if there is nothing but a sheer, delicate layer of silk between me and whatever is out there.  I do not remember being more open in all of my life.  This openness is touching me on different levels.  I am walking around with a heightened sensitivity.  It is touching all of…

A family member asked that we do something with Maya’s shoes. As with all of our shoes, we keep them in the mudroom.  They’re the first thing we notice as we enter our home.  Without questioning, as soon as I had a chance, I packed up Maya’s shoes and brought the box up to the…

Baa, chess, ping pong, smiles, hugs, Pangea bed, twirling in the rain, no curfew nights, yoga laughing, veganism one by one, Gatorade, unending love. What do these words have in common?  I’m sorry, I cannot tell you.  Mathew and I were invited to a memorial service at Rowe Camp and Conference Center.  Maya attended sleep…