The cult my mother joined when I was a child was a doomsday cult. They have predicted an end date many times. Members cancelled their life insurance policies and gave up jobs and their homes, etc. She took me out of the Lutheran Church when she joined that group. It was VERY confusing being taught conflicting dogma as a child. I really feel for the children of these people. They’re making a decision on behalf of more than just themselves…they’re making a decision that their children will have to deal with at some point in their lives. I hope you will join me in sending them love.

Speaking of elderly fathers, here’s a lovely poem about a Norweigan grandmother:

Brush Strokes
by Joyce Kennedy

At bedtime, my Norwegian grandmother
sits on the small bench before a dressing table,
unbraids her hair to brush it. I sit on the edge
of the bed to watch, fascinated by the two of her,
her back in front of me with silver hair
cascading down it like waterfall, while
her face, soft to touch as a pansy, peers
to smile at me from the mirror. “It’s good,”
she instructs me with confidence, “to brush
your hair one hundred strokes each day.”

Side by side in our shared bed, she teaches me
the Twenty-third Psalm. Together we lie down
in the green pastures of Norway, oh, beautiful;
we stop by the still waters of fjords. Together
we walk through the valley of the shadow of death—
so thrilling, that encounter with dark, soft
as a brush stroke, and we come through unscathed.

“Brush Strokes” by Joyce Kennedy, from Ghost Lamp. © Laurel Poetry Collective, 2005.

Around 1975, I knew a lovely 94 year old woman named Ivy Wilson. She had come alone by ship from England to the US at the age of 16. She landed at Ellis Island and took a ferry up to Crown Point. A young man ran a buckboard from Crown Point up to Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, NY, in the Adirondack Mountains. He was Bill Wilson. They ended up marrying and she gave birth to 4 sons in less than 5 years. She was a beauty even at the age of 94 with GORGEOUS silver hair. I look forward to seeing her again some day. I’m sure you can hear me Mrs. Wilson. I loved and appreciated you and still do. – xoxo

Congratulations Elisa!