Be More Tree

“Oh! Happy day!” Thalia held the morning sketch and twirled like the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil. “I LOVE this drawing! Typist experimented with a charcoal pencil and smudging tool. What do you think.”

“I think you should sit down,” Urania replied. “You’re making me dizzy.”

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The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow enduring force straining to win the sky.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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A word from Typist:

When I was diagnosed with C, one of my earliest thoughts made a beeline to the navy bandanna. I once had two… blue and red. What happened to the red, I cannot recall. Why I saved the blue for over 40 years is as much of a mystery.

In the seasons after my mom’s death from lung cancer, I used to sit in our living room recliner and attempt to sketch the arching Ash trees that lined Adams street outside our picture window.

The trees are gone now — taken by emerald ash borers and not replaced.
Without them, the streets of my childhood look bare and ugly — worn and tarnished houses with nothing to soften them.

Yesterday I went in search of a picture of my mom and found it!
I have precious few… for some unknown reason, my way of dealing with the past was to shut it out. C has gifted me curiosity about my mom. When I shared the pictures below with my dad he said I have grit like she did. I’ve never heard her described that way. Some of my cousins, aunts, and uncles have reached out… offering an opportunity to share in their memories of the tree from which I fell.

#cancergifts