Jessie Gaebele, right an left These are photos of my grandmother. The one on the left isn't one we used in the sequel to A Flickering Light called An Absence so Great. It's one I wanted to save for moments like this. I suspect it might have been her "traveling dress" after she married. She looks pretty happy in this photo. The photo of her in the lovely white dress was used in A Flickering Light (which was named to Library Journal's Best Books of 2009, a lovely honor for my grandmother. She's a little older in the traveling dress photo, had owned her own studio at this point. She'd walked through fire, too and been strengthened by the process.
I'm just thinking of her as I prepare to write my annual Christmas letter, something I didn't do last year because I had atypical pneumonia.
this year, I'm feeling fine and I'm ready to send Christmas greetings your way. It seemed appropriate to do that with some pictures of my grandmother where I spent nearly every Christmas during my growing up years, at her big house in Minneapolis. I miss her. But that's what the holidays can do for us, remind us to remember.
May all your memories of Christmas past nourish and transform.
