Merry Christmas from our home to yours - 2022

 

Christmas 2022

As 2022 winds down, I thought I'd take a few minutes to reflect on our family's year and share a little of what's been going on in the Prinsen household.

Richard and Jonathan - photo by Jeannie, August 2022

 Jonathan turned 20 in September and is now in his last year of school. It is hard to see this phase of his life coming to an end because school has been such a happy place for him ever since he was a little kindergartener at Rideau Public School. But I'm sure he will adjust to the changes just as he always has -- and I guess we will too. Organizations like Extend-a-Family, whose camps and Saturday programs Jonathan has attended for many years, offer adult day programming, so we'll consider whether a setting like that is appropriate for him come September of 2023. There is still time to work some of these things out. Jonathan had another bout of more frequent seizures this summer and had to have some more medication dose adjustments; at the moment he is four months seizure-free. His neurologist sees him every six months, so with her direction we just stay the course when things are going well and adjust medications as needed. Jonathan continues his unwavering interest in all things related to garbage and recycling, brooms, shovels, dustpans, windmills, and seagulls -- and he shouts "Good job!" encouragingly to people when he sees them walking their dogs or shoveling their driveways.

 Allison and Jeannie - photo by Naomi De Jonge, June 2022

Allison is 24 and is continuing her studies in Linguistics at Queen's. This past semester was the first one in which she attended all of her classes in person on campus, and it went very well. She made the Dean's Honours List with Distinction (GPA 3.9 or above), so we are pretty proud of her for that achievement. She is still living at home, which is a good arrangement while she's at university.

Richard's year started off in a way he didn't intend and wouldn't have planned: in January he fell on ice while out for a run and broke his fibula (the thinner bone in the lower leg). He required surgery and spent the winter convalescing and healing. By April he was able to weight-bear and go back to work; then over the spring and summer he eventually got back to running and even a little soccer. This fall he started back as a volunteer at the Run & Read program at Molly Brant Public School; this program had not run in person since pre-Covid.

I (Jeannie) retired from my online course work at Queen's at the end of the winter 2022 semester, and that's been a good change. I always enjoyed connecting with the students, but I was ready for a break from the constant marking and putting-out of fires. I'm working a few hours a week as a copy editor for Kingstonist News, a local online news site; the people are great to work with, and I enjoy working away behind the scenes, tidying up punctuation and grammar and checking details. As for my writing, I've had three publications this year, all poems: if interested, you can read those at the top of the "My Writing" page of this blog.

All four of us succumbed to Covid-19 in August after avoiding it for 2-1/2 years. Jonathan probably picked it up at summer camp, though we can't be sure of that. The kids recovered pretty quickly, but Richard and I were knocked out with fatigue for nearly two weeks.

 The biggest and hardest piece of news from this past year is that my dad died in April. (See his obituary here: Arnold MacEachern. It will appear as a pop-up; just wait for it.) He had lived in Whisperwood Villa, a Charlottetown nursing home, since the fall of 2019, and I had only seen him once since Covid began. In March of this year the nursing home had a Covid outbreak, and Dad got it; though he was not all that sick with it, it may simply have been too hard for him to bounce back, especially when he was already quite weak with advanced kidney failure. My brother Alan was with him when he died, and he just slipped away peacefully. We had a funeral for him in late April; I and my brothers Lincoln, Alan, and Errol were all able to be there (my brother Scott, who lives and works in China, could not make it). The four of us spoke and/or sang at the service and tried to honour Dad as best we could -- which honestly was not difficult. Dad was such a wonderful person: patient, hard-working, faithful, interested in people, true salt of the earth. The world doesn't seem the same without him, particularly with Mom also gone. At the funeral my brother Lincoln sang Rodney Crowell's song "Love Is All I Need," and this is the final verse:

I had a dream last night: I saw my mom and dad
They were happy now, and I was glad.
They had a brand new house; they'd just moved in
And when I awoke, they were gone again...

I know love is all I need
I know love is all I need
I know love is all I need
That's all I know

Drawing of Dad and Mom by my niece, Meredith Mac Eachern

Those seem like fitting words with which to draw this letter to a close. As 2022 nears its end we have extended family members with health concerns, and these things have a way of distilling life down to what really matters: love, family, and friendship. The small acts of caring and kindness often turn out to be the most significant; as my favourite quote from The Fellowship of the Ring puts it, "Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."

This describes the story of Christmas as well: how the greatest event, the Incarnation, was embodied in the smallest package -- a tiny baby, weak and vulnerable, born while the eyes of the world looked elsewhere. 

This Christmas, may your celebrations and observances -- religious or otherwise -- be filled with love, and may the New Year bring you peace and joy. 

Jeannie, Richard, Allison, and Jonathan

 

Fourth Sunday in Advent: LOVE

 

Photo by Richard Prinsen, December 20/22

 

On this fourth Sunday of Advent, the theme is LOVE.

Have you ever heard someone say "God is a God of love," only to have someone else quickly reply,"But He's also a God of justice"? Or "But He's also a holy God"?

I have. This approach seems to suggest that love is just one of many characteristics God possesses. Sometimes He'll need to emphasize one characteristic more than the other (like a worker choosing one tool over another depending on the task), but we should never lose sight of the other side: "God is loving but just." "God is merciful but also righteous." 

The deeper implication, I think, is that love is kind of flabby and indulgent and must always be balanced by something more strict. If we focus too much on love, the idea goes, we give people the idea that they can do whatever they want without consequences, so we need a corrective of justice or righteousness to keep things under control. Thinking about it, I can honestly say I've never heard anyone say we can swing too far in the direction of God's holiness -- but I've definitely heard that we can swing too far in the direction of His love.

Pastor/teacher Brad Jersak describes love in an entirely different way: it is not one of God's many characteristics, but rather it is God's essence.

God’s nature or essence is simple, boiled down for us in the fourth chapter of John’s epistle: “God is love…” God is not love plus anything. Love is the essence of the Triune nature and every attribute of God is a facet of that one Diamond or flows from that one infinite Spring. Anything we say about God’s holiness, justice or wrath can only be said with reference to God’s love. The “holiness” or “justice” or “wrath” that is not love is not God’s.

- Brad Jersak, "Does God Punish?"

I like this explanation so much (though I can't pretend I completely comprehend it). Love is who God is. These other things are expressions of who God is. 

So we don't need to say "Yes, He's love, but He's also..." But doesn't enter into it. Everything God does expresses who He is: love. Love isn't a weight placed on one side of a scale; rather, as Jersak puts it, the love that God is is more like a diamond with many facets or a spring from which everything else flows.

That means of course that Jesus -- who is "the exact representation of [God's] being" (Heb. 1:3) -- fully embodies that love too. Jesus didn't just do loving things like healing the sick or feeding the hungry or even dying on the cross; Jesus was Love. Jesus is Love.

If that's true, then even the tiny baby wriggling in the manger, in all his vulnerability and innocence, was -- is -- Love. The one whose birth we anticipate and celebrate at Christmas is Love.

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The Risk of Birth
- Madeleine L'Engle

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war and hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honor & truth were trampled to scorn—
Yet here did the Savior make His home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn—
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

 

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You can read my previous Advent posts here at these links: HOPE, PEACE, JOY.

Third Sunday in Advent: JOY

On this third Sunday of Advent, the theme is JOY. 

I say that pretty confidently, but actually I wasn't even sure until yesterday what the "official" theme was for Advent 3. I had to ask the experts ... on Twitter. Was it joy? Or was it love? Somebody tell me – I need to know how to feel!

But of course the Advent themes aren't emotions. When we light the candle of Joy, we aren't proclaiming a fluctuating feeling of pleasure or good cheer -- which is a relief for those who find Christmas a sad, lonely time or who, in their lives in general, struggle with grief, poor health, broken relationships, or despair about the future.

 

The Joy symbolized by the brave, persistent flame of this third candle is a deeper sense of well-being that isn't dependent on our circumstances or personalities. It's not something we live up to. It's more like something God lives down to. Jesus' birth is the breaking-through of that joy into our world and our lives.

My favourite line from a Christmas carol, in fact probably my favourite line of any Christian hymn, is this one, from "Joy to the World":

He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

I think this is the Gospel in a single sentence: that Jesus comes to bring life and blessing to every corner of our planet and the deepest places of our hearts. Everywhere there is death and brokenness, Jesus comes to heal and restore.

I'm so sorry if you don't feel joy today. I get it. Things are pretty rough out there right now. Let's light the Joy candle -- that's the pink one -- together. Let's allow that deep Joy, that sense of God's all-rightness and blessing that flows beneath everything, to make its way into our hearts. Even if we don't feel it, let's rest in it as we make our way toward the celebration of Jesus' birth.

(You can read my previous Advent posts here: HOPE and PEACE.)

Second Sunday in Advent: PEACE

On this second Sunday in Advent, the theme is PEACE.

It's been said there are three kinds of peace: peace with ourselves, peace with others, peace with God.

Peace with myself. I'm not sure how that looks for you, but for me peace with myself means the assurance that I did the best I could, that I didn't grasp for control or betray my deepest values, that I accepted my limitations and just allowed myself to be an ordinary person.

Peace with others. There's a Scripture verse that says, "As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." (Romans 12:18) I find that first part of the sentence helpful because it acknowledges that when it comes to relationships, we can really only be responsible for our own stuff. Taking that responsibility may mean asking, Have I done all I can to foster peace, even if I feel betrayed or misrepresented? Does peace mean speaking up, or letting go? Can there be peace without restoration of relationship? These are tough questions. It strikes me, as I think about it, that peace with others and peace with ourselves are actually not all that separate.

Peace with God. Over the past couple of years, as I've been challenged to rethink a lot of things about faith and church and Christian community, I'm realizing more and more that peace with God doesn't depend on attending church, signing off on the tenets of "historic Christianity" (whatever that is), or proving our worth to God. God has already made peace with us – with me. The Incarnation shows that this has always been God's greatest desire: to be in relationship with us, to reveal what He is like, to bring peace and harmony to every corner of the planet. Jesus comes, as the carol says, "to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found."

As we walk through the sometimes dark days of Advent, may we know peace in all its forms, as a Presence deeper than emotions and circumstances, sustaining and upholding us on our path.

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You can read my previous advent post here: HOPE.

Merry Christmas 2021 - from our house to yours

 

 

Dear friends and family:

This time last year most of us thought that by now we'd be reminiscing about Covid-19 ("Wow, wasn't that an incredible time?"), not talking about it as a real and present threat. But here we are. It's affected and dictated so much of our lives these past two years. We can take comfort, I suppose, in the fact that (despite experiencing it differently depending on our circumstances) we really are all in it together.

I wanted to share a little bit about what's been going on in our lives this past year. 

Jonathan turned 19 in September. He has coped amazingly well with the changes and disruptions Covid has caused. He's actually been fortunate because when schools closed in January and April, he was able to keep attending because the province made provision for special needs students to go in-person. His School-to-Community class was the only class in the brand-new Kingston Secondary School for a lot of the time this past winter. Jonathan loved going to school and being with his crew of friends. He was also able to attend Extend-a-Family day camp for six weeks this summer, giving some normalcy to his summer break. Jonathan is a tall, busy guy who loves watching garbage truck videos on his iPad, sorting the recycling, and adjusting neighbours' shovels and brooms on their porches.

The last six months have been a time of concern for us with Jonathan's seizures. They've been fairly well contained with meds for the past few years; normally he'd have maybe 2 or 3 seizures a year. But since June he has had about 17. One involved a trip to the Emergency Department after he fell during a seizure at school and hit his head hard on the floor. He was fine, but it's meant a lot of time working with his doctor to adjust his medications and try to get the right combination. He's now been seizure-free for four weeks, so we're hopeful. In January he will transition from pediatric neurology to adult neurology; this means meeting a new doctor who will take over his care. The pediatric neurologist has been very helpful, but he really needs adult services now and we've been waiting quite a while for this transfer to take place.

Allison is 23 now and well into her Queen's degree work in Linguistics. She has really found her niche with this area of study. Last winter she took three online linguistics courses; this fall she took two online language courses and an on-campus course. Queen's is going online for at least the first half of the Winter 2022 term because of Covid, so she'll be back to all-online again. Allison has adjusted well to all the disruptions and has worked diligently on her courses. In her free time she's enjoyed outings with her social club, reading, playing games, and going for walks.

 

Richard continues to work as a nurse at Kingston General Hospital, although for two months this spring he was redeployed to Hotel Dieu Hospital while KGH was making changes to accommodate Covid patients from out-of-area. He enjoyed this temporary change but is now back to his regular position in Orthopedics. Most of Rich's sports and volunteer opportunities have been put on hold due to Covid, but this fall he enjoyed running and volunteering on Saturday mornings with Parkrun, an organization that holds non-competitive 5k runs on Saturdays all over the world. He's also made a point of getting together regularly with a fellow from church for a little informal baseball. (Jonathan enjoys these outings as well, especially picking up all the balls that have been hit into the outfield.)

 

I (Jeannie) have continued working as an online instructor at Queen's, although I'll be phasing that out next spring; I'm feeling it's time to dial back my university work and do something different. I recently started working as a copyeditor for a local news organization and while that's been sporadic so far, I really enjoy it.

I was glad to be able to go to PEI this summer and see Dad. I had not seen him since August 2019 (at which time he was in the hospital and hadn't even moved yet to the nursing home where he lives now). Though we didn't go to the Island as a family, my brother Errol and I went down in July for a week; I was grateful for this opportunity to see Dad and my brother Lincoln and other relatives. Dad is not well, but he is holding his own, always calm and stoic and accepting of what life brings.

Other big news for me was that I had a second eye surgery earlier this month to improve my double vision. I'd had one surgery (on my inner eye muscles) in Sept. 2019, and there was some improvement but it didn't last. This time the surgeon tightened my outer eye muscles (I know: ewww, right?). It's only been a couple of weeks but it seems to have made a really significant improvement so far. So I'm grateful to have been able to get that done.

I had three publications this year:  

• My short story "End of October" was published at Reckon Review
• My poem "Mary" was published at Voidspace (it's based on Mary's Magnificat and was a response to the journal's challenge to write a poem using only the letters in "Merry Christmas")
• My poem "Gazing upward at night, with Chesterton" was posted on the local library's Poetry Blackboard as part of our Poet Laureate's "Joy Journal" series. 

It has not been the most creatively productive time for me during Covid, but I have done some good reading (see my end-of-year book post HERE) and have watched some excellent TV series including Poldark, Victoria, Sanditon, Cranford, Wives & Daughters, Schitts' Creek, and Belgravia. I've found it so relaxing just to just sit down in the evening, enter into the lives of fictional characters, and forget about Covid for an hour. 

 As it stands now, Kingston is not doing great with Covid. After having an amazingly low case count for a year and a half, our city's seen a big rise in numbers in the last few weeks as a result of the Omicron variant. Richard and I have already had our booster shots; the kids will get theirs on Boxing Day. We just continue trying to live as wisely and safely as possible, staying home when we can, and following the protocols. But I can't deny that there's kind of an ominous pall over everything right now that makes it hard to get into "the Christmas spirit."

Still, I was thinking about these lines from How The Grinch Stole Christmas:

He couldn't stop Christmas from coming: it came!
Somehow or other, it came just the same.

Despite the uncertainty and tragedy in our world right now -- and really, when has there ever been a time in history that there was no uncertainty and tragedy? --  Christmas comes. Christmas comes because Jesus comes. As the carol says, "He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found." 

No matter what your religious celebrations and observances may be -- or if you have none at all -- may we experience peace, friendship, and hope this season and in 2022, and may we do all in our power to ensure that others experience them too. 

Thank you for being a part of our lives.

Jeannie, Richard, Allison, and Jonathan

Five Minute Friday: EXPECTATION

 Today I'm linking up with the Five Minute Friday community, writing for five minutes on a given prompt.

This week's word is EXPECTATION.

One thing the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us is to hold our expectations lightly. 

Something hopeful in us urges us to make plans, so we do -- but there's always some kind of caveat, spoken or unspoken, in the background, like 

"Assuming we don't have new pandemic guidelines." 

"If things don't change in the meantime." 

"As long as we're still allowed to do that kind of thing." 

"We might feel differently when it gets closer to the time." 

The certainty we used to have about how things will work out is a lot more tenuous now.

We're approaching a second Covid Christmas. (Who would have expected that, a year ago?) Christmas comes with its own special set of expectations around socializing, gift-giving, travel, church ... it can feel overwhelming at the best of times.

This year I think one of the best gifts we can give each other, and ourselves, is the gift of lightly-held expectations. After all, any sense of control we had was an illusion -- surely Covid's taught us that too.

It's hard to accept changed traditions and scaled-back or abandoned plans. But in a way, I think we honour those who have suffered from or lost loved ones to this awful virus, and those working tirelessly to protect us from it, if we stop assuming our plans have to be perfectly executed and just acknowledge that we can't do it all, have it all, be all things to all people. It's OK to release our grip on expectations. And the truth is, other people may not be at all disappointed in us when we do -- they're often relieved and grateful. Sometimes the expectations are really all in our own minds.

Today I was reading this Bible passage:

"When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son,
born of woman, born under the law,
to redeem those who were under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as his children."
Galatians 4:4-5

Isn't "the fullness of time" a beautiful phrase? God's plan unfolding just as it should, when it should. Expectations fulfilled at just the right juncture in history.

In this Advent season, let's hold our expectations lightly ... and our hope tightly.

2020 Christmas Greetings from our home to yours

2020 is drawing to a close, and I think most of us will be glad to see the end of it. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our lives and routines in ... what's the word I'm looking for ... unprecedented ways, and we hope for good things in 2021 with a vaccine and eventually a return to some semblance of normal life again. I say "some semblance" because of course for so many of us there is no real return to normal: many have lost loved ones and been ill themselves. And for those who have not been personally touched by Covid-19 I think there is a general realization (though this should not have been news to us) that life is not something we can control and capture.

Perhaps Advent and Christmas are also good reminders of this truth, as we ponder God's faithfulness, his Emmanuel-God-With-Us presence, no matter what the circumstances of life bring.

When school shut down in March, our family had to adapt to new routines and rhythms. This was perhaps hardest for Jonathan, who suddenly lost all his favourite activities: school, camp, church, Circle of Friends, sports events with Dad, and the library. We found enjoyment in many, many, MANY family walks: on the K&P Trail, at Lake Ontario Park and Fort Henry and Lemoine Point.

Jonathan sprouted up in height, past me and then past Allison, lost about 15 pounds, and wore his sneaker soles smooth with all the walking. He did amazingly well all those months at home, but was glad when school started again. Now in mid-December the newly built Kingston Secondary School has just opened up, so he and everyone else at KCVI has moved over there. It will be an adjustment for him in the new space, but we know that if he has his familiar people around him, he will adapt.

 

After taking her first on-campus course in Linguistics last year, Allison moved back to remote study along with most other students. This fall she took three third-year Linguistics courses (attending around 9 hours of Zoom lectures most weeks) and has worked very hard. She'll continue this area of study in January; she really seems interested in this subject, perhaps because it combines her interest in language with a sense of structure and order.

Not going to PEI this year was perhaps the biggest disruption to our normal life. When we said goodbye to Dad in his hospital room in August 2019 we never thought we would not be seeing him for well over a year. But he is doing well at the Whisperwood Villa nursing home, staying healthy, and coping patiently with the restrictions Covid has brought. We are hopeful that sometime in 2021 we'll be able to make the trip there and see him and my brother Lincoln and other relatives again.

Richard's work has not changed too much this year besides the need for Covid safety protocols at the hospital. He is missing his volunteer and sports activities: no road races, church softball, or summer soccer. He's done a lot of running on his own, coped with a sciatic nerve flare-up this fall that lasted about a month, and provided regular support to a church friend who has some life challenges.

As an online instructor I have not experienced much day-to-day change in my work. I know our students are stressed and struggling, though, so I need to remind myself that marks and due dates are less important than students' well-being. One student told me in his year-end reflection that he found doing the work in our course "oddly comforting." In 2020, I take that as the highest compliment.

I haven't done a huge amount of creative writing this year (the fact that my writers' group isn't meeting is definitely a factor in that), but I did have three publications:

• My poem "These days" appeared in Dust Poetry in January. (It's interesting to look back at the very real global concerns that preoccupied us in those pre-pandemic days.)
  
• My poem "Leaving home for the last time" appeared in Juniper Poetry this fall.
• My article "Prison farms in a time of global crisis: thinking big, starting small" appeared in Kingstonist.
  

 ***

Ten days from now we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We won't be having an in-person Christmas Eve service or any big family gatherings. But nothing stopped the coming of Jesus into this world as a baby, and nothing can prevent our celebrating that gift, even if it is in new, quieter, simpler ways than in the past. 

But when the fullness of time had come,
God sent forth his Son.
(Galatians 4:4a)

Whatever way you celebrate Christmas this year -- or even if you have different religious observances or none at all -- may you experience peace, contentment, and hope for the future.

Five Minute Friday: PRESENT

Today I'm linking up with the Five Minute Friday community, writing for five minutes on a given prompt.

This week's word is PRESENT.

 

If you've read Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest, you'll remember Ramona's first day of kindergarten, and all the mishaps and misadventures she experiences as she struggles to adjust to new people, new routines ... and new words.

One of the most memorable moments is when her teacher, Miss Binney, points to a seat and tells Ramona, "Sit here for the present."

Ramona is so excited: she thinks sitting in this seat means she'll get a present.

But she's disappointed when after a lengthy, expectant wait, no present appears. Finally her teacher has to explain to her that "Sit here for the present" doesn't mean "Sit here and you'll get a gift"; it means "Sit here for now."

I think a lot of us can relate to Ramona's disillusionment. We believe that if we just wait patiently, complete the task, make the sacrifice, then we'll be rewarded with a wonderful outcome. In Ramona's case she's mistaken because she doesn't know that the word present has another meaning. In our case I think we are sometimes mistaken because we see life as transactional. "I did what I was supposed to do; I should have received a payoff!"

Advent -- especially Advent 2020 -- is a good time to set aside transactional thinking. This year, and this season, teaches us to hold our expectations lightly, wait in hope, and not demand results or rewards. 

It also reminds us that present has a third meaning besides "gift" and "now"; it also means "close at hand." "Nearby." "Here." 

"The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,

and they will call him Immanuel, 

which means God With Us."

Matthew 1:23

 

Five Minute Friday: SACRIFICE

Today I'm linking up with the Five Minute Friday community, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. 

The word this week is SACRIFICE.

free image vectorstock.com

I've been a parent for over 21 years, and I hope I don't sound like I'm looking for a Nobel Prize when I say that parenting involves a lot of sacrifice. Parenting may require us to sacrifice time, privacy, peace and quiet, plans, a clean tidy house ... oh, and sleep. A lot of sleep.

As a child I took very little conscious notice of the sacrifices my parents made for me and my brothers. They weren't passive-aggressive "Why aren't you grateful for all I've done for you!" types, so I never felt the weight of guilt or shame that we kids were preventing them from enjoying the life they might otherwise have had if they hadn't been parents.

We were their life. I know that now. Maybe it's because I'm a parent, or maybe it's just because I've grown up and can see the extent to which they sacrificed in great and small ways for our happiness.

That's what this poem of mine, "On whom his favour rests," tries to capture: the spirit of sacrifice that comes from a heart of love.

On whom his favour rests

We watched from the kitchen window as Dad plunged down

the lane through knee-deep snow, flashlight beam bobbing

ahead, to start the truck. Exhaust plumed round the red

tail lights, and soft snow flurried as he brushed off the hood

and windshield. Afterward, he walked back to the barn to hitch

the horse to the sleigh, then drove it to the door for Mom

and the boys and me to climb on. We sat on bales he’d placed

on the sleigh bottom, and held tight for the lurching ride

down the lane to where the truck sat running. While we waited

in the warm cab, he returned the sleigh to the barn, tied up the horse,

and came back to the truck at last. At the time, we were so impatient:

it was Christmas concert night, and we wanted to be at the church

already, to shrug out of our coats, don angel wings or

shepherd’s robes, and act out the greatest story again. Yet

now what I think of when I recall that night is not my lines

or cues, or even the news of great joy, but the whickering sound

of the horse’s breaths, the creak of wooden shafts on leather harness,

how the stars swung shivering overhead, and how my father

did without complaint all he could to give us those times of wonder

and bring all the peace on earth our hearts could hold.