Last night I received a phone call from my mother.  My grandma’s doctors have stopped administering chemo and the family is setting up hospice.  Next week I will be traveling to Minnesota to spend time with my grandmother and family.  I wish I could tell you all about her, not in some personal, feel-sorry-for-me kind of way, nor in a shocking exposè format; in the way that demonstrates the power and grace and beauty of an ordinary life.  I might try.

Several months ago I wrote her a lengthy letter.  I am grateful for being afforded the opportunity to tell her how she has shaped my life.  As we prepare for her absence from her body, there are few words unsaid.  Thank God.  Then it hit me: we all have the same fleeting opportunity to say the things that ought to be said.

Take care to do so in 2009.  Grace.