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Feb. 28, 2005 Each December, there are some things I can always count on. The days will get shorter until I long for Spring, though Winter has just begun. The neighbors will swap holiday greetings; plates of homemade cookies; the news of who will come to visit and who won’t make it home; and of course, vacation schedules, so we can keep an eye on each others homes, or cats, or perhaps, teenagers home alone over the holidays for the first time. Orion will rise and the winter stars will shine brightly in the cold, clear sky while we watch meteors shooting across the heavens. Greeting cards will arrive from across the country. And, some will include the wonderful Christmas letters that catch us up on all the adventures, joys and new additions to family and friends that occurred in the year just passing by. There are two letters we can always count on, but neither came this year. My brother Mike writes about his and his wife’s careers; their children’s school and sports achievements- they have two; and about the dogs - they have four. They enclose photos of the kids and the dogs that we put up on the fridge with a multitude of magnets. Their grins can make me smile any day. Their lives were hectic this year. Mike now covers a large territory, driving from his home in New Jersey, south, to Virginia and north, as far as Vermont and Maine. Maybe his letter will come in January, ushering in the New Year with news and smiles. I hope so. The second missing letter was from our friends Brenda and Dan – Aunt and Uncle to our son even though they have never met in person. My husband and I met them in graduate school at Cornell University over 20 years ago. Although we haven’t seen each other since then, Brenda and Dan have kept us in their circle of friends through the annual letters. Their letters have been full of the news of their extended families, folks we never met but have come to know over the years through the yearly missives. The letters tell of the work that they do, Dan, as an interpreter, fluent in Polish, English and Indonesian. Over the years, he has worked for several U.S. presidents and Indonesian presidents, and in 1999 he worked for all the people of East Timor as a peacemaker with Peace Brigades International. We heard about him volunteering in the local Ambulance Corps, always helping others, making the world a better place. Brenda, too, has been busy. She has mediated for trade unions and members. Most recently, she works for the Institute for International Education; she helps corporations create scholarships to educate people around the world. She creates the opportunity for tremendous positive change, one person at a time, through education. She is also fluent in Indonesian. Brenda is kind, and generous; an inspiration to all who know her. Their annual missive was sorely missed, and, I wondered why they hadn’t written this year. There must have been a very good reason. I thought perhaps they were overseas again, maybe in Indonesia doing the good work that they do. I put writing to them soon on my to do list. Then, the earthquake and tsunamis hit Indonesia. My concern jumped up a notch or two. If they had been in Indonesia, were they alright? If they were here in the States, then they would surely know the best place for us to send a small donation, where it might do the most good. Getting hold of them moved to the top of my to-do list, priority number one. This evening, I started with an internet search, Dan and Brenda and Indonesia – no luck. But, when I just searched for “Dan Fietkiewicz” I found out why there had been no letter this year. I found his obituary. Daniel Fietkiewicz, son, brother, friend, humanitarian, died in October. It is hard to write more. That last sentence was so final, so overwhelmingly sad. My son will never meet Uncle Dan. We will never hear his voice again; never get to say “Hello” again. Harder yet, we never got to say “Goodbye.” You see, he is the first friend I’ve lost like this – missed his illness, missed the chance to see him, thinking there would always be time to get together. It’s not that I haven’t lost friends to Death. There have been suicides when I was younger. And, a couple of friends from childhood died young from illnesses they were born with, and one succumbed to anorexia while we were still in high school. I’ve lost grandparents, an uncle, my mother and my father. But this is the first time I’ve lost a peer, someone my age, to an illness, in the prime of life. I thought there was enough time to get together, and there wasn’t. You see, I’m 48 years old; Dan was 52. I should have had time to see my son go off to college and my life become less demanding. I imagined being well and able to travel. I knew I would get to hop scotch across the country to visit my friends then, or leapfrog across the Atlantic to see my cousins. We would have time to hug and laugh and talk about the old days. Now, I wonder how many friends I will miss seeing, how many laughs and hugs I will not have time to enjoy. I wonder how many “Hellos” I’ll miss and how many “Good-byes” I won’t get to say. I wonder if this is something new I can count on in December. So, this time of life is hard. That’s no different than any other age, really. Every time we enter a new stage in our lives, we face new fears. We get our first jobs and deal with office politics, medical benefits and not being able to visit our dying grandparents because we don’t have enough leave or cash – no more summers off. We become parents and worry over chicken pox, bike helmets and peer groups. Our parents get older and sometimes we’re not done raising our kids before we’re parenting our parents or maybe just managing their finances or their healthcare. I’m old enough that each new responsibility gets assimilated pretty quickly. But I still have to think about it, to process the new information, to change my world view. And, this time, to think about how my mother was only 53 when she died, a year older than Dan. She must have been the first of her peers to leave her children not fully grown, to go before her grandchildren were all known to her, and to lose the chance to contribute to her family and community as an elder. Soon, though, I will focus on the joys middle age. I’ll take pleasure in middle aged parenting. My ego doesn’t have to interfere with our child’s maturing goals. I’ll take pleasure in middle aged teaching. I’ve done it long enough to feel confident, even, fairly competent. I get the weekly privilege of being fulfilled by the joy I feel in my student’s achievements, which belong to them alone. There are so many gifts. When December comes next year I’ll still be able to count on the same things. The days will get shorter. I will long for the sun and be awestruck by the winter sky. My heart will be warmed by the casual good cheer of strangers and the astounding kindness and generosity of neighbors, new and old. I’ll anticipate each card or letter with the delight of a child marveling at the wonderful toy that appears when bows and paper are stripped away. And, I’ll stop to remember the years that have passed and the love that has filled each and every day of my life. Each year, the blessings of December are something I can count on. ------------ About the author: Katherine A. Minden is the Director of Writing Across America, a national writers workshop, and teaches the Fredericksburg Writers Workshop. 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