Portrait in Knit Hat 3 In her confident gaze, I see all that is _right_ with the world. She doesn’t blame. She rises. She doesn’t regret. She hopes. The reason I laugh and cherish, imagine and float, is because of that spirit. It’s uniquely hers. Even when she is dour, that life is in her. It never surrenders and it never resigns to the pessimism of others. Her spirit is living.

Jordan’s Favorite Tea Cup I relish mornings. It’s prime writing time. Quiet, new, open. Even though I was up until nearly 2am last night, it didn’t stop me from rolling out of bed by 7 without any help of the alarm. Twenty minutes later and I was sipping coffee, clacking away on a new writing project. I got so absorbed in it I almost didn’t hear Jordan foraging through the pantry.

She’s been sick with the flu. Her counts were so low on Monday that she had to skip chemo this week. But she’s on the mend and resuming her nonstop pace. Today she hopes to make a cake. She’s already made several calls to her friends and she’s gearing up to design custom Valentine’s cards.

I scold her for a deed that is endearing. In truth, she comes by it honestly. When I was a boy, and my mother would come home from work, I would bombard her with requests and selfish enthusiasm. She would often respond, “Larry, I just walked through the door.” Now, when I find myself rebuffing Jordan for her lack of timing, I think my mom must receive a signal and smugly smile.

She is laughing in her hysterical way: multiple staccato gulps of air in quick succession. I have to pull the phone away from my ear a bit. – Dad, there are cats on the roof. More bursts of laughter. – Isn’t that silly? It makes my day, this random observation shared with me in an equally random phone call. I haven’t seen her all week. I’ve been on the road. I won’t be seeing her anytime soon, either.