The house felt the absence of Laura's love after we dropped her off at the ferry. A quick stop to Pelindeba's for coffee and cake made the transition more palatable. The farewell at the ferry was, as usual, a loving and joyful affair. How grand it is that we miss each other so.

It is fall now so we need to bundle up a bit more and the trips to County Park are augmented by trips to Roche Harbor to listen to the bells. Lately its been the 6pm bells though. Wednesday night while sitting on a bench listening to the chimes, Helen stopped by to say hi. Helen is the director and producer of Stage Left, an acting group dedicated to making the arts available to everyone. They put on plays all year all over San Juan Island for free, (donations and sponsorships accepted of course) and were performing Oscar Wilde's "Its important to be Ernest".   

Mother wanted to see it but since Laura was arriving the very next day we decided to wait until Wednesday night and take her with us. For Laura's arrival, mother had already decided to get dressed up and wore her favorite "dressy" outfit to town on Wednesday. Then she stayed dressed for the evening performance and she wasn't the only one. Even the little girl in the front row was proud of her special dress.  

Mother was very "tapfer" as she sat through the whole performance. It was fabulous, Laura and I laughed a lot and mother laughed right along with us although the accent and speed of the dialogue made it hard for her to keep up and understand all that was going on.   

It sure was a wonderful change of scene from the usual quiet contemplations that mother engages in while listening to the Tenor singing German Love songs.   Thursday we had a quiet day at home while Trish the visiting nurse came to visit in the afternoon. It has become a wonderful event, it almost feels like a social visit, while we talk about mother's progress, her medication, tumors, rashes and all the ways to make her more comfortable over tea and cookies. Somewhere in between the conversation Trish takes mother's vitals and pulls out her notebook to update her medical record.  What a wonderfully civilized way of providing home care. We are so blessed indeed.   

This morning, after another wonderful and restful night mother insisted on wearing her good outfit again to take Laura to the ferry. Only this time she asked me to fetch her white wool coat as well. It was still in the drycleaner bag from last May. We were going to take it to Germany until we heard that the weather was too hot and then really missed it when it snowed in Salzburg.   

We made it to the ferry in good time and had a couple of moments to sit and share our love before Laura was off to her world in Sidney once again. We are so fortunate that Laura and I have learned to understand the importance of keeping our complete independence while respecting and sharing each other's lives. It is what makes this experience possible and fills it with so much love and light. What a blessing it is.     

On a beam of Light,  
Oma, Laura and Thomas