Shattered hearts, deep grief, and a reminder Death is always present even if out of sight, out of mind
Ada Jane Harvin, 2024-2025
When a Bright, Little Light goes out
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Tag Archives: family & relationship dynamics
Beaver Hill Wild
Two crazy parents have fun getting their kid to do a steep, grunt hike up a local classic in the Washington Cascades, Saturday the 25th of July 2009
“I don’t wanna hike. I’m too tired!” Talia, my youngest, says as she lays down in the trail on the way up Beaver Hill. She’s rebelling, fussing, and laughing all at the same time. And she’s game! Tater Tot does make it to the tippity top. Her mom, Kristina, watches patiently before gently nudging her to stand back up. “C’mon, Bug, let’s go!” Kris finally says. Foto by William Bass.
We parked at the Phelps Creek Trailhead. Got out of the minivan to stretch and look around before opening the rear hatch to pull out our packs. The three of us were about to start our backpacking trip up into Spider Meadows when we realized something weird was going on like some kind of spacetime distortion from a shimmery syfy show. Because, what? Where were…hey, our backpacks aren’t in the car. What?!? I was so flabbergasted and confused I even peered up into the bushes. Darn! Where were OUR PACKS! Even peeked underneath the car. Ugh, not there either. OK. How? How could I forget? I’m SO CAREFUL and METHODICAL! It’s how our post-multiple divorce, remarried, extra-blended, postmodern, post-polyamorous family managed our logistics amidst chaos! Truth was we’d forgotten the packs. Nope, I’d forgotten the packs. Me. I failed to doublecheck back at the River House, our base in the Greater Leavenworth-Lake Wenatchee-Plain-Spider Meadow area. My goodness, was I upset! Mad, despondent, but also laughing at the absurdity of it. Deep down I felt grateful, tho, as a menacing tumult of heavy, dark clouds rolled in, the wind blew, and a few raindrops fell. Kristina thought it all ridiculous, and yet so divinely perfect as we didn’t have to camp in the rain. She was more peeved at how grumpy I was. Talia threw back her head and rolled her eyes in her most perfect act of pretend delirium.
Stormy skies thunder into the Glacier Peak Wilderness here at the Phelps Creek TH where the hike up to Spider Meadows begins.
In Memoriam: A Letter to Nancy’s Family
Rev. Ms. Nancy Patricia Griffin Hughes, 1932 – 2019. Foto from one provided to the public by the family for her obituaries in various newspapers.
This letter was written to the family and friends of Nancy Hughes, the mother of my ex-wife Gwen and grandmother to our two children, Dylan (formerly Morgan) and Kathryn, aka “Kate.” Although she passed in June of this year, her family elected to celebrate her transitions this past October at a wake they dubbed Momfest, held out at the Hughes family cabin at Willow Lake outside Lynchburg, Virginia.
Had hoped to attend and read a version of this letter, and was unable to do so. My printer wouldn’t work, didn’t have everyone’s email addresses, and didn’t wish to burden my ex-wife with reading my letter out loud for me at such an emotional gathering nor make copies to hand out to people. I think she emailed it forward to her siblings, but not everyone in the family knew of the letter. So now this letter is shared here this Xmas Eve for anyone to read. For Nancy was a Gift for the whole world.
Goodbye, Nancy. May the Afterlife be the journey you always imagined it to be. Thank you for sharing your life with so many people from Egypt to Tibet, from Canada to Ireland, from France to all over the United States and elsewhere. Here’s my letter as follows:
Mowich Lake Snafus: A Family Camping Trip goes off the Rails
Everything fell apart, we grumped and fussed, and we all laughed anyway. Laughed some more, too! Ahhh, what a strange misadventure into the beauty and awe of Mt. Rainier National Park, September 2005
*This is a work in progress with more pictures to be recovered from the wake of The Fire. Enjoy anyway! More awaits.*
“Hello, I see you!” Talia, my stepdaughter I’ve raised since birth as my 3rd & youngest daughter. Her cold weather clothes got left behind at home sho she had on my 1986 wool shirt and Gwen’s old anorak from the Appalachian Trail. Life is funny. Life is messy. Yes, it’s cold outside, colder than it’s supposed to be for summertime, and, hey, we’re having fun anyway!
Sometimes everything goes wrong. Nothing is as expected. Certain private fantasies and anticipations get pushed aside. Expectations turn upside down like toddlers flipping bowls of wet, mushy food. Whatcha gonna do, huh? Call Ghostbusters? From many miles deep in a national park? Where there aren’t any payphones to “quarter out” from nor cell towers for cellphones to connect thru? Well, you share everything you have, take a deep breath, grin, giggle, and chuckle at the gauntlet of predicaments until hysterics take over, and laugh. Laugh at the silliness of the living as we live ones sort out our messes from being too busy living without paying attention to…well, as most parents may understand, parenting children in the midst of everything else provides those perfect storms where focus scatters when priorities themselves become distractions. How in the world does that happen? No matter. Gotta go potty. Real bad, too! Figure it out on the way there and all around trying to get back from lost, not-lost. As we did back in the Summer of 2005.