Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Eleven years isn't so very long, but I am now a different person than I was then.  Eleven years ago I was twenty four years old, and I had rainbows in my eyes.  The future that I pictured was a perfect continuation of the fairy tale that had begun to blossom in my imagination.  Perfect fairy tales, however, are rather boring, and we learn very little when everything is perfect . Superficially I didn't have any wrinkles or stretch marks eleven years ago.  I had never spent a sleepless night taking care of someone else.  The girl in the picture above didn't know a whole lot about selfless giving.  For the record the girl sitting at the keyboard typing still has quite a bit to learn on that topic. When I looked, mesmerized, into my brand new husband's face eleven years ago, I never imagined that I could gaze upon him and feel anything less than euphoria.  Eleven years ago I was well-rested, and his pranks were always adorable.  His raggedy Ba...

I remember when I received the news that my grandmother had passed away.  I was living overseas when the phone rang that night.  When I took the receiver, I heard my Dad's normally stoic voice tremble.  In North Carolina, his mouth formed the words, "Momma died today," and in my dark office in Wales, my ear passed the news on to my brain.  My first reaction, being a Momma myself, was one of sadness and sympathy toward the man so far away at the other end of that receiver.  I think I said, "I'm so sorry.  Are you okay?'  Losing a Momma creates a complicated, ragged void since memories of mom are often tied to all parts of ourselves. My grandmother had been wasting away for a few years.  After living a selfless life, she faded away painfully slowly before our eyes, so I did not feel much sadness on her behalf.  I think we all were more than a bit relieved that she had been released from what her life had become in the end.  The last tim...