I dreamed about you

I've dreamed many times about you, Rachel. In the dreams, for some reason, it turns out that you weren't killed in that accident, but you are still alive. Or you come back to me in a very huggable form. We cry together, we laugh together and then talk, talk, talk. Last night I dreamed about your daughter. I was happy to know that she hadn't forgotten me after all. She knew me because of what I had written for her in a little furry coat that she carried.

Rachel had a little furry coat and hood. It was blue. She looked so sweet in it. Then Uncle Steve gave her a white fur rabbit hat that she wore when the blue coat was too small. It occurs to me again that the books I am working on and struggling over are a love letter to Rachel and to my other children. They tell my grandchildren that I will remember them and I want them to remember me.

Joy and Addie

I love to be a link between the future and the past, a link in the chain of people who stretch out behind me as farther than eye can see and stretch forward as well. I'm not as involved in the life of my grandchildren as I was with my children. That's as it should be. My great-grandchildren will be even more removed. But I do still love them and think about them and I write for them as well as for myself.