Tears, laughter and the whole big mess of it

Yesterday was a day full of both sadness and joy, one of those weird kinds of days that leaves you feeling both stuffed full and drained empty at the end.

We had our family Thanksgiving yesterday because Nick has come home for his 3 weeks of R&R from Alaska. So I spent the morning cooking desserts and a rice stuffing. Gabi helped with a few things, but mostly she prepped for her physics classes (she's spending hours and hours every weekend getting ready for her AP class. I just keep telling her, "next year will be easier.")

I made both pumpkin and pecan pies as well as a gluten-free chocolate cake (from a mix, and it turned out really well!). Then a brown and white rice stuffing that was yummy enough that even gluten-eaters would enjoy it.

So there was all that joy to look forward to... but at the same time much grief and sorrow. Our friend Jan passed away yesterday morning. Jan was diagnosed with cancer over the summer ~ in both her colon and lungs. Thankfully, she was well enough to go home for a few hours on Thanksgiving to spend with her family. Then on Monday or Tuesday she came down with an infection and the end came very quickly.

Jan was such an amazing woman. She had that grace of spirit ~ born of generosity, kindness, strength and being absolutely grounded ~ that is both profoundly compelling and deeply comfortable to be around. Everyone loved Jan. I think we all aspired to be like her on some level.

Jan worked for the Elk River School District until she retired a year or two ago. She was the librarian, working first at the elementary school and later at the high school. Gabi came home a few days ago and told me that, when she told her classes that Jan was very sick, her seniors told her how they could still remember Jan reading to them when they were little kids. She used different voices and made the stories come alive.

So, after crying and baking and lighting a candle for Jan, we took our plunder to Nick and Amanda's house and spent a great afternoon hanging out with family, feasting and chatting. It's the sort of thing Jan would approve of. Jake and Max are getting to be so grown up, and both know all the plays that the Vikings should have run. Sofia is bright and articulate and can talk about anything, and Eli continues to be the bundle of fun, playing with everyone. It was great fun.

And it was snowing lightly, that first real snow of the season, and everything looks so clean and fresh and lovely.

After we came home we checked our e-mail to see if there was a new CaringBridge posting about Jan. There wasn't, but instead we received an e-mail from Gabi's cousin Kathryn in England to let us know that Kathryn's stepfather Andrew passed away last week. We were both a little dumbfounded at the timing, but that's the way it works, isn't it? Andrew had been a member of Parliament for many years, so Kathryn included an article about him written by the Guardian. It made me proud to have met him.

We closed the day with more physics for Gabi; she's teaching a unit on thermodynamics this week. I cleaned up the last of the pie-making mess and then made some earrings and worked on a little felt credit card case. It was a quiet close to an all-over-the-map kind of day.