File under "Life Goes On"

 I dropped Emily for band camp this morning, to the only people she trusts, her peers.

On consideration, of course.

Five homes in fifteen years, five different sets of care givers.

Ignored by the brother she adores and struggled so hard to get here.

He has not contacted her in two months, in spite of the fact,

to quote a gleeful Emily to an old friend, two years ago,

"They were stupid enough to give us computers and phones."

She's so smart, she carries over a four point average.

Yet she seems uninterested in researching colleges that might interest her, and scholarships.

In two years these people will be gone, too

Big decisions between now and then.

My thoughts this morning, while hanging my laundry. It looks lovely, in a gentle breeze under blue skies, the awful clouds above cleared away. Tomorrow a service for Walt. Dear Mark, who has soldiered through this first test of life, death of a parent, with grace, said simply "I can't talk about him in front of a lot of people." 

I asked an older relative to speak about my mother, and now I'm the last one standing. I wrote out many index cards. Mark read them and even laughed several times.  Jan thinks it may not be long enough; I'll take questions from the audience.

There was a severe storm over night. I took a trip through the garden this morning.

The new rose on the trellis. A kind of multiflora, grows up to six feet tall.

It lost some petals in the storm, but not many. It's fairly protected.

A toad who waited patiently. We disturbed his home to plant the rose yesterday,

but he nimbly hopped aside.

The phlox lost a lot of petals.

 The rain seems to have beat through the petals of some flowers.

You all have given me this flower's name before. I hope to hear it again.

Funny, I managed to recover all my nouns after the stroke,

but I struggle with the ones I never knew.

Another one whose name I've been told. Maybe this time it will stick.

I was after the bumble bee, but they are in and out of these flowers so fast!

See him there a little left of center.

Petals from the purple flower were knocked down last night,

And the balloon flower has many petals made seer.

School starts in three weeks. Life goes on.