All Souls Day--"Now the Dead Move Through Us Still Glowing"

Today is All Souls Day. The keeper placed the photos of our loved ones who have gone ahead of us, including those of a few pets on the altar in the dining room, and then filled the pockets of the curtain in the bedroom with many more. Every year we have more people cheering us on from the other side of life..this year it is our Aunt Wyn and friends Patty and Daisy and Fred and Rolly and Rolland and Millie and Anna and Zelda and more. Today, the keeper found a lovely poem by May Sarton, All Souls, and in it she writes, " Now, the dead move through all of us still glowing, . . . .what has been plaited cannot be unplaited --/only the strands grow richer with each loss/And memory makes kings and queens of us."

Also today the keeper spent the morning with the dentist, and he told her all about his cat who died 18 mos ago and he is still grieving the cat, he got so involved telling the story and she got so involved listening that he put her crown in strangely. He had to redo it. It's nice to know other pet lovers.

On Halloween we had a terrible drive by shooting of a policeman who was parked in his patrol car. We all think it is horrible and it has really shaken up the police. Then today the keeper went to a meeting at St. Joe's and she ran into a policeman. She asked him how he was doing and he tearfully said that he and others were getting by but that they have been overwhelmed by the outreach and kind words of ordinary Seattle people.