In honour of Anita Chavez and Daniel Berry
The JOY in their commitment will last for ever
You will find them in 4 different pictures below during our delightful weekend of celebration in Chicago. (just "mouse-over" the pic). The fifth picture of a millions of years-old table still clearly full of life, is a clear indicator of their longevity to come...

From Mary, September 5, 2007
Dearest ones,
I just printed out the family calendar for September and am struck by how this first week is such a microcosm of life with its endless comings and goings/ beginnings, endings, future promise/ ups and downs.
On September 1, Katrine would have been 62 and Lucy Berry 102—but neither of them made it that far.
September 1, 2007 is also the joyous day Daniel Berry (32 years and 3 days old) and Anita Chavez (a fortnight shy of 31) announced to Gordon and me and everyone we could shout out the news to, their commitment to each other lives.
On September 4, we remember Michael who drowned 37 years ago, a month shy of his 19th birthday—younger than all but one of his nieces and nephews are now.
And just one year ago, how can that be, today, September 5, Mamma/Gramarley let go her fierce wonder and delight in this world to embrace the next.
Tomorrow, September 6, Mia and Sebastien will celebrate their 9th wedding anniversary—as grand a party as that was, the joy of that day pales in comparison to the delights of the way Ava and Tyra have turned them truly into a family.
On September 1, 7 years ago Muriel Berry died, a week short of her 60th birthday, on September 7—when Shannon Hynes will in fact be 26.

There it is. But how grateful I am to have this microcosm, these events all held together by the fact that we love each other –a mystery and a blessing. It put me in mind of a conversation at a bibliotherapy meeting in MPLS a few years ago, attended by Mom, me, Joie Willette and Mary Jo in which clouds came up. Having just seen remarkable displays of clouds in Colorado where we went from one Scott family wedding (Scott Yeager whose ND grad son David got married in Breckenridge) to another Scott (Perrizo, like Gogo a family history hound, living next to Rocky Mountain National Park), it seemed an excuse for poetry.

Clouds
After Driving through Colorado

One of us once commented
“I love how clouds always change!”
Just as another said,
“I love how all clouds are the same!.”
It transpired
What we both admired
Was the ineluctable
Mutability
Of the sky’s shape shifters—
Be they the lazy white drifters
Morphing through the bluest blue;
Or ghastly grim forms writhing
Across the sky in storm;
Or the shifting to a more fiery hue
That marks the approach of night and morn,
Clouds, like love, are something
That we can trust.
Just as loss will cycle into gain
Or joy will turn to pain,
Clouds, like love, heed Heaven’s rule:
Change is sure;
All is subject to renewal.
                                                  Mary H-B September 5, 2007

CLOUDS of COLORADO...
From the "Scotts" trip, August 2007

Move over thumbnail (above and below the pic) to view full size picture Don above Scott's place Wind River Gap Morning mist at Grand Lake Mary stonehunter, Colorado cut Clouds at the wedding reception Milner pass shower coming Mary, showers coming from the west Rough road, rough clouds

Mary surveys the top of the world

Rocky skyline clouds

Majestic elk & harem

Scott's humming bird & bee

Gordon touches down

Lyons sunset

Lyons sunset, clouds have changed!

Where the jeep came from

Colorado - Texas with mountains...