previous - next

November 03, 2003 - 9:11 p.m.

It's another winter day in Colorado. The cloud ceiling is high overhead, but as I look towards the mountains, the Front Range is completely socked in. There isn't any snow on the ground; there isn't even any falling. It's just cold and gray. We could be sitting in the middle of Nebraska for all the view we have today. All I can think about is how nice it would be to be home today, snuggled under the covers reading a good book or watching a movie and drifting in and out of sleep. I don't imagine that it helps any that I was up �til almost 2 am visiting with a friend online, and then got up at 6 am. Of course all the thoughts flitting through my mind today somehow include a nap.

It's lunchtime, I am picking at a BLT I got from the cafeteria. I have my coat on, because I suddenly got cold here in the last 1/2 hour. It's blissfully quiet here. Everyone has wandered off to lunch somewhere. That's just one of the many advantages to eating at your desk.

This morning I sat at my desk listening to the controversies raging in another cube. They debate everything over there. Politics, religion, investments, government spending, gun control and the war in Iraq... almost anything that you can think of has been discussed. Some days I just enjoy it, while other days I try to drown it out. I rarely join in mostly I just listen. Sometimes I agree with one or the other of them, some times I think they are so off base that I don't even want to touch the topic, and still other times I leap from my chair and walk over to give my 2 cents worth. Today's issues were about the election tomorrow, what to vote yes on... what to vote no on... and then the debate about why or why not. I just listened.

I have been looking at the course schedule for the spring. Looks like I�ll be taking 2 classes. And they are both on Thursday night. That is going to be great. After having classes 3 nights a week this semester, I can hardly imagine only being up at the school one night a week.

Yesterday was a nice day. I stepped away from my schoolwork for a few hours and went to devotions and a deepening at the Bah�� Center. I again began thinking about the impact of the sister relationship in my family tree. It hasn�t just impacted one side of my family tree, but both sides. My great grandmother on my mother�s side had a close, close relationship with her sister. They lived together most of their lives, of course as children, and then as adults the younger sister never married and lived with her older sister and husband for years and years. They were the major support for each other. Then my grandmother was very close to her sisters, but closest to the one that was closest to her age. They were always there for each other. My grandmother took care of her sister in her sisters last years. She died of diabetes, and my grandma was there when she died. My mother and her sisters are close as well. Again, my mother helped take care of her sister in the last years of her sister�s life. She died of cancer. My mother was at her bedside when she died. I have 4 younger sisters, and we are all close as well. They are my best friends and will be my emotional support all of my life. My father�s mother had at least 4 sisters. They too were very close and as they got older they would get together and spend a weekend or a week at a lake somewhere just being together. My grandma had three sisters who married three brothers. The relationship of the females in my family is so very strong. It is a major piece of all of our lives. In the generation of my children there are no sisters, none at all. It is so very strange to think about. There are brothers but each of my nieces has no sisters. I wonder how that relationship will manifest itself. Will the cousins be close? Or will the sister relationship pass to the next generation to be carried on? I hope it isn�t lost. I have 3 sons, and it is my ardent hope that they will create that close relationship with each other that has been a foundation in my family for generations.