A poem

Here is a poem my mom wrote in elementary school, occassionally as I sift through her writings I will publish them here, if for no other reason then to imagine her writing these words, and maybe in some way connecting with her thoughts:

Fall
By Barbara Maggiulli

Fall is cool, with a swaying breeze,
It has bright and beautiful leaves,
The song of the wind is a sleepy sound,
It sings a lullaby.

Fall has leaves that drop in the creek,
They make crackling sounds on the
dusty dirt road,
Now, sooner does the sunset glow.

Back to CA

After an 18 hour ordeal (read never fly Southwest) I am back on the left coast. 4 weeks in NY, and it was all wonderful. There is nothing like family and I am lucky to have one as good as mine. My siblings are my best friends, and I could spend days with them and it would feel like mere seconds. Matt is growing faster then I coudl ever imagine, at 8 years old he is a caring, funny and light hearted kid. Despite his tremendous loss, he stills views the world through the eyes of a child and I hope he never loses that. If he can hold on to those years with my mom and never forget her love I am sure he will be just fine. Shawn is working hard and off to college in just a few weeks. I don't know who is more excited, him or I, there is nothing like college and I hope he enjoys every second, there is certainly no rush to enter the "real world". Anyway, I forsee a future for us running our own mutual fund since we now bond over financial books, talk stocks and dream of being retired by 30 (I guess that would make me 37). I am happy to see him dreaming, and I am excited that he is old enough now to hang out and really communicate, and I look forward to us sharing many good times together. Michelle and I had some great times together, and I will miss running the streets of NYC with her and talking about life, our mom and the madness and beauty of it all. Hopefully she will be living there next year and "own it" as she so cutely says and I can go visit my city living sister. We have been through it together every step of the way, and a bond like that is hard to come by. It is amzing how fast time goes by, which is why I should start living and stop typing here. Anway if you may read this blog for whatever reason, here is what you should get out of this extremely long post....life is short, enjoy it, love it and tell the people you care about how you feel about them. You can either enjoy your brief moment here, or abhor it, either way it can all be taken away faster then you ever thought possible. Live it. Love it.

A dream

In a dream I saw my mom for the first time...my mind struggled to capture the images the feelings, and to hold onto every moment, but alas they slipped away like sand through my fingers. I awoke with only a vague sense of what had happened, and in fact all I remembered was looking at her face as we danced. No music, no noise, into some great void I whispered "Mom this is really hard," and all she voiced back was "I know, I know it's hard." These strands of memory from some dream state, and yet some sense of peace. Peace not from knowing that this pain might go away, but rather a peace from knowing that my mom might somehow somewhere sense my pain and realize how hard it is, those words I know seemed to speak to me also that this absence (if you can call it that-maybe it is instead rather a different sense of precense) was equally as hard for her and those simple words " I know" uttered with her amazing sense of empathy assuaged some (even if very little) of this pain. Though my heart will never be as light as it was before December 9th 2005, maybe its burden will feel less heavy. Forever missed, forever loved....

Some Cape Cod Pcitures