Sad news at Christmas

It' s hard for families to hear of deaths anytime but especially at Christmas time. And yes, we know from the experience of last year. The kids called yesterday and told me of the death of Noah Gray, principal at Lindbergh for years. M
AMA down here, former principal in Sikeston.
He was a fine person. I'm proud to have known him.
Then Harriett emails me that Rosalie LaPlant is real bad in Texas and this sounds like the final chapter for one of our "Big 3" gang. The first, really. Rosalie and Noah were both presidents of the Alumni Association in Cape so there was a further tie. The other tie is that I loved them both.

I pick up the paper today and two deaths from political years: Pauline Young and Stoy Coy, Grace Coy's husband. It made me remember those days also. I read the obits of SL Post and see two more from from political days: Jackie Butler and Jim Tom Blair. Life is a tapestry of weaving parts of a life into another.

Then I recall the happy times of the season and I focus: Mark and Bryan putting up the Christmas lights, Sara, Susan and Betty going with me to St. Louis to see Mannheim Steamroller, Sara, Betty and I visiting Julia and Joker this season, and Joan and I going to Nashville and seeing the great shows--staying at Opryland and watching the world celebrate the season. I see a stack of Christmas cards which I will answer==someone taking the time to say Merry Christmas, and I rejoice at inevitability of death but the bonds of friendship which make a life seem a certain success in small ways.

As Jean Bell Mosley says, "Rejoice"!