Dear

Long ago, a church Easter party, and a guess the number of jelly beans game. There was a short run off with some older girls. I was perhaps 5 or 6. And I won, a soft brown bunny, very realistic and soft.

Wound up sitting out on the church steps waiting for mom to pick me up, when the bigger girls came up to me. "You didn't deserve to win, that is ours." And they took it. I was distraught, but what could I have done?

"You shouldn't have been sitting out there!" my mother says. Brothers think I should have held on to it tighter. None of which made me feel any better. Word got around, and I heard I would get my bunny. I figured they'd taken it back from the bullies. Instead one of the elderly men of the church gave me a bright yellow, very fake looking stuffed bunny. I knew enough to express gratitude, and hide my disappointment. But it really wasn't the same, nor the point.

Thinking of this, looking through the Easter stuffed soft toys, lots of sheep and silly ducks, and a few rabbits of more or less real looking colors. And I felt a voice in my head tell me, I had my soft brown gift. She certainly hops like a bunny.




If you watch carefully and creatively, life does give back what it takes away, if you stay open and grateful. Sometimes with decades of interest.

I've been finding myself calling Eleanor various endearments. This is odd, for me. I've never been called them, not much even as a child, never from D. Rarely have I even used "dear" un-ironically, or as an address to begin a letter. Yet I keep catching myself calling Eleanor Sweetie, honey, even cutie-pie. I'm not sure what this means, only that Eleanor doesn't care one way or the other. Probably a benign harbinger of oldladyhood.