A Good Way to Start December

This morning I am basking in the sunshine streaming through my office window. I am also basking in some after book club stupor( not quite the right word)and gratitude. December 1st. I have changed the calendar , made my December goal list and now sit and ponder the transition from November to December. December a month so full of joy and sorrow. December a busy month so packed with memory, tradition and high expectation.On Dec 5th Zac would be turning 41. He will now have more birthdays gone than he had while with us.My baby boy, a man only in my dreams and imagination.So December is that. It is also so many wonderful things and I try to always dwell on the wonder and the gratitude of another Christmas . This will be the first Christmas that I have no parents. For years they celebrated Christmas in Florida and were not physically present on Christmas day but always a call, a card, a greeting. Last year Dad took great lengths to make sure he called all his grandchildren on Christmas day. He managed to reach each one of them.Last night I came home from a wonderful evening with women of Zac's age, mothers caught up in the hectic years of working, mothering and nesting, creating the memories and experiences their children will carry away. I was honored to sit in that circle feeling somewhat old but very much connected in that league of womanhood and motherhood with all the worry , sorrow, and joy it brings. Honored too as an author while the women who'd invited me discussed and brought 'Fear of Drowning'to life . They weaved their own family stories and their own feelings in to the observations and insights they shared. I had the privilege of hearing how my words and the work I do impacted them. They considered six generations of women in the book , made comparisons and spoke of the strength of each woman. We were all strengthened by the time together. This is the euphoria I feel when I come away from such meetings.The strength and resilience of women dealing with whatever it is that society throws our way. Some of the challenges they voiced are foreign to me and some so deeply familiar. Gwen who had invited me is the granddaughter of my dear friend Gladys who is now gone from us. I realized again last night just how much of an impact Gladys has had on me. As a woman now at the in between age, a woman younger than Gladys's 96 years and older than the forty year old women I met with I have wisdom to pass on , I have experience and life lived. I, like Gladys, have stories to tell and in all that there is a common bond. I drank my first rum and eggnog when I got home and welcomed the season ahead.