Sunday was Christmas tree day, so after breakfast we hiked up to the spot above the cabin where we usually cut a tree and Himself chose this one. “Isn’t it kind of big?” I asked. “No,” he said. “It should be about an eight footer.” I’d been kind of looking at scrawnier trees, feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole tree thing, but he was right, it was a really pretty shape. It was heavy, and Himself was valiant dragging it downhill to the car (20 minutes or so? I’m bad at estimating distances). I wish the pine cones hadn’t…

My remarkable grandmother died last week. She was almost 102 years old, and she was ready. She’d told us that she did not want ever to return to the hospital and so she died in her own bed, at about 2 am, with my Aunt Molly by her side. It’s what she wanted, and while we’ll all miss her, it was time. It was actually more than time. She was a mythic figure, our “Mommy Jane” — a name my eldest cousin Brad gave her. She raised Brad from infancy to about four. When he was learning to speak, he…