And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
This week, I am on retreat, trying to get through a final draft of my new novel. Being on retreat means that I am not teaching or meeting with clients. I am instead totally focused on my own work. It’s also a time that I go to bed when I’m ready to sleep, and I wake up when I’m ready to wake up. And I read, read, read. Not student manuscripts, but books from the stack of wanna-reads next to my desk. During a typical work week, I only read during lunch. Breakfast is spent in front of the computer, opening emails. Dinner is spent in front of the computer, reading manuscripts. But during retreat, I read at a kitchen table at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then again at coffee break in the middle of the day. I read in bed, usually poetry, before I go to sleep. It’s WONDERFUL. And I write, all day long and into the night.
Usually, I take my retreats away from home, typically on the Oregon coast, which is where I will be in October of this year. For this retreat, I was also supposed to be away, at a retreat center in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. But a circumstance intervened and I was unable to get away. So I spent this week, in retreat, at home.
For the most part, it’s been okay. I’m writing and reading. I’m still able to get to the gym and swim (there was no gym in Mineral Point). But today, the second to last day of my retreat, well…
First, my husband fell on the ice, landed on his face, and broke a tooth. In order to still fulfill all of his hours at work, he needed me to pick him up at the last minute possible to make his dentist appointment. Okay.
Then my granddaughter, Grandbaby Maya Mae, had early release from school. There was no one to pick her up. So I agreed to do so – I was going to be out anyway, dropping Grandpa off at the dentist – and then I also agreed to keep her with me from 1:40 to 4:00. We made these arrangements over Zoom, and I was just about to sigh when it was interrupted by my granddaughter flinging both hands in the air, grinning with her entire body, and then she shouted, “And I’ll get to see you IN PERSON!”
My sigh was hiccupped off by laughter. And absolute joy.
A few weeks ago, I gave my granddaughter her 9th birthday present. She had hair down almost to her waist. Like my hair, like my two daughters’, her hair was fine, but there was a lot of it, which made for snarl after snarl. One night, on Zoom, Maya showed me a photo of herself from when her hair was chin length. “Oh, Grandma,” she sighed. “I miss my short hair. And I want bangs.”
After a quick consult with her parents, Maya’s birthday present was created. A trip to a salon that specialized in kids. A haircut, style, and a pedicure. Then a trip to a fancy-schmancy store, where she could pick out an outfit all of her own. Finally, dinner out, after she changed into her new outfit, and we kept her hidden until her parents arrived and they got to see the new Maya Mae.
Maya is now 9 years old. Her little speech impediment is gone – gone are the srees which are now trees, gone is my title which used to be Gamma Kaffee, and is now Grandma Kathie. She speaks with long sentences and even longer words. She reads to me on Zoom, before I read to her. And she writes stories.
She writes stories!
At the haircut appointment, I watched as hair flew and fell to the floor. At one point, I couldn’t even see her face. And then…and then…
Ever see a child start to grow up right before your eyes?
There she was. Her hair curved around that face I have loved since I was privileged to see her on ultrasound and privileged again to see her emerge into this world. New bangs provided a frame. Her nails glistened pink. And her smile. Oh, that smile.
Then she looked over my shoulder into the mirror behind me. “Oh, Grandma Kathie,” she breathed. “I love it!”
I realized, watching her grow up like that, right there in that salon chair, how fast the years are going by. She’s nine. Srees are gone. Gamma Kaffee is gone. Her own version of Uptown Funk, sung from my backseat when she was three and with the word “Funk” changed into something else entirely that nearly made me drive off the road, is gone.
Time is passing.
And this is why, on my second to last day of retreat, when I should be writing, I instead had Grandbaby Maya Mae in my backseat, telling me about her school day. It’s why she’s downstairs as I write this, watching Encanto, her favorite ever movie (I took her to see it), and she’s shouting up every single line as she’s memorized the entire damn movie, including, as she says, “the words I don’t understand.” And it’s why, as soon as I’m done posting this, I will be running down to watch it with her in the time I have left before we have to go pick up her mother.
There will still be time to write. But time with her as a little girl is fast running out.
“Nobody talks about Bruno!”
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.




Such a lovely granddaughter! 😍
Thank you!
She looks beautiful!
Thank you!