"Had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding..." ~ Jane Eyre

The photo above is one I took a week ago in the early hours of dawn. A blanket of snow had just covered New York, and I stepped outside the door to my apartment, where this classic latern is located, with my camera to try and caputure this serene moment. I had slept another unrestful night and sought some refuge for peace and quiet outside.

To me, the paradigm of peace is the outdoors after a snowfall. There is nothing but a calm silence that permeates the air the snowflakes fall in. The white on the ground is indicative of purity itself, and something about it all just envokes serenity in the heart.

I look to the latern and hope to find some light in my heart, for it has been heavy these past two weeks. I thank all those who left comments of kindness here; they mean so very much. My Christmas was blessed, and I am so thankful to have spent it with the love of my life and my family. The Prince told me that I must start writing again, and I shall. Another day or so and I shall...

"There is some difference between living..." ~ Jane Eyre

There is some difference between living for the next moment and living in this moment, grateful for all of the love and beauty in life. When my father's father was dying of cancer, I was in the middle of being a high school production of Our Town. Always remembering Emily Webb's passionate plea to the Stage Manger about living life as you live it, the Stage Manager responds perhaps saints and poets do...maybe. The rest, no. Well, I consider myself a poet...and I try each day both here on this blog and in the life I lead to savor each moment because I know as long as life is, it shall not last forever.

And then there are those saints like Heather, as you see in the photo above, whose lives are tragically cut short by cancer. Although her friends and loved ones refer to her as Heather, she was also known as Dr. Vonbergen. This woman was brilliant, and before she died she was working as a psychologist that was of late working to improve the lives and mental health of recent veterans from Iraq, among all the other things she did to help others.

I am posting this for my sister, because it has pained me to see her in so much pain. There is a link below to a collage her friends made from Cortland, where she and Heather were roommates their freshman year. There are photos I will post at later dates of Heather with us at my sweet sixteen and Heather with my family in New York City for the first time. My dad called her Jazzy Heather - and she began signing her name that way to my parents in cards - she loved jazz music. So, I am posting a classic jazz song for everyone to listen to today...enjoy life, call your friends and loved ones to tell them you love them, and please just take five minutes out of your day to donate money so that future lives can be saved from this terrible form of cancer.

http://web.me.com/scottcd/Tribute_to_Heather_Vonbergen/Heather.html (a tribute)

http://www.curesarcoma.org/ (please donate)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSfduB-0lss (a charmed life - some jazz for Heather who lived one until the end)

"And to be in danger of dying..." ~ Jane Eyre

About a month ago I posted the eulogy I gave at my grandfather's funeral years ago. Although my focus was on his life, I am taking a moment to speak of his death. He died a slow and painful death of sarcoma in his left arm. It was two years of suffering, both for him and for his family. In the end the decision was made to bring him to Calvary Hospice, where cancer patients go to die here in New York. They say its a hospital where terminally ill cancer patients can die in dignity. As wonderful as the doctors, staff, and facility was, there was nothing dignified about it. I drove two hours after work to the Bronx three times a week during his last days, in a haze of despair and grief.

He was incoherent soon after he was brought there, feverish and hallucinating. Eventually more morphine was given to him and I barely was able to get him to open his eyes, wondering if he even recognized me as I sat in the quiet room, as he sat on the brink of death from cancer, never getting used to his violent shakes from the morphine dripping into his body. His arm was triple in size, and the cancer attacked his heart.

It attacked my heart as well.

In the end, watching my grandfather die was not the most traumatic aspect of having to be in Calvary Hospital. There were waiting rooms where patients who were not on their last breaths could go with family, and I will never forget a man in his thirties in a wheelchair, thin and gaunt, being wheeled around the floor by his two parents to get him out of his room for a small while.

A parent should never have to bury his or her child. That is all that kept going through my head as I watched the sad and depressed faces try and muster courage for the sake of their son. I, too, became depressed.

And I am depressed tonight...my sister's voice filled with tears on the phone earlier make me morose tonight. Her roommate from college died - a woman with a PhD, a big heart, and a gentle nature - of sarcoma of the leg at age 33.

Cancer does not discriminate...it can attack anyone at any time at any age, and I am so grateful for the unity this Friday evening: http://su2c.standup2cancer.org/ Donations can be made on the website or during the program. Although a wonderful place to donate is, indeed, right here (please make a gift if you can):
http://www.calvaryhospital.org/site/pp.asp?c=ktJUJ9MPIsE&b=3226167

"By a sheet of ice..." Jane Eyre

At the moment I am feverish and eating small bites of mint chocolate ice cream. I haven't eaten much for the past two days except for some rice and pretzels, but this evening I had the sudden craving for ice cream and just ran to Baskin Robbins for a single scoop; it may not get my fever down, but it certainly is refreshing. Its not chocolate chip, either. It has chocolate crunchies laced through the mint ice cream; even better, I say.

Lately, my associations with ice cream relate to Jack. He only eats vanilla, and he gets rather excited and shouts out "ice cream" anytime its offered or he knows its coming in a restaurant. I admit that I love indulging him with it. His Aunt Maimy loves nothing more than to take a scoop of Haagen Dazs and plop it into his Le Petite Prince bowl and then proceed to spoon feed him as he watches Curious George before bedtime. Le Petite Prince, indeed.

As you know, when I was a young girl visiting my grandparents' home, my grandmother Anoush never let us leave without eating something. Many times this something was an ice cream come. She always kept cones in the pantry and I remember my favorite flavor being a Dolly Madison orange and vanilla creme that she stacked oh so well. She made sure that she pressed the ice cream into the bottom of the cone. Her freezer always had ice cream in it, and during summers after shish kebab dinner, my sisters and I always enjoyed big bowls of rainbow sherbert that she served in lime green plastic bows as we sat outside on the stoop.

My mother always teased me because I always managed to get chocolate ice cream on my t-shirts in the summertime when I was a child. She said it was a continual pattern. I loved when my chocolate ice cream got almost soupy in the bowl and I would work hard to get it all on the spoon; it never ever quite stayed on the spoon, but my mother was always very understanding. She has to be; my chocoholism is inherited from her.

The first song I ever heard performed by Sarah McLachlan was "Ice Cream." I remember by friend Tea playing it for me and felt an instant allure to her voice and to the lyrics. Though at the time I was a teenager and scoffed them; how could anything be better than my beloved cookie dough? Well, as I have gotten older my views have changed and tonight I especially empathize with her lyrics. I am so feverish and miserable tonight and wish I could give up this ice cream and have him here instead. He is better that ice cream..he is so much better.

View: Ice Cream - Sarah McLachlan

(*Please tell me your favorite ice cream flavor when you comment...*)