"Heaven and Earth" (Pieter van Tonder)
This morning, my partner Laura left before I woke to buy an electric saw at the store.
She used it to fashion an opening in some of the wood we have, for a store bought cat flap laying around to go between one of the kitchen windows and the back porch - much like what a friend and I made for my old house on Mt. Washington. She did so even though we already had a makeshift flap in the window.
I was long awake at this point. As I watched her work, Laura told me of how her grandfather used to say that his tools 'made him.' She told me that after he developed dementia, her uncle sold all the tools which were so important to him and to her, and how this angered everyone in the family.
Not an hour ago, Laura received a call from her mother saying her grandfather John Westhoven passed away this morning. He was 101.
I did not know the man, but I hear he was magnificent. I know Laura to be one of the more visionary people I've ever met - with intuition, style and good fortune for days. A touch of the prophetic in there as well, prone to plucking things from the air.
Laura, her mother and myself all think someone may have just paid her a visit this morning.
As if the circumstances surrounding John’s death weren't beautiful enough, I've noticed other lovely layers that point to the strength of her connection with him and his passing visit in the wind.
John Westhoven died with the sun overhead in Sagittarius, last sigh of light before winter, and the waxing moon in Aquarius, fixed air sign and center of winter's empty lungs — same as they were when Laura was born.
And the strange thing about the cat door she sawed an opening for in the wood: it doesn't properly shut or fall back to its plastic framing. Like some factory error perhaps correctable by hand, it stays open when pushed, inviting air from the outside in…
She used it to fashion an opening in some of the wood we have, for a store bought cat flap laying around to go between one of the kitchen windows and the back porch - much like what a friend and I made for my old house on Mt. Washington. She did so even though we already had a makeshift flap in the window.
I was long awake at this point. As I watched her work, Laura told me of how her grandfather used to say that his tools 'made him.' She told me that after he developed dementia, her uncle sold all the tools which were so important to him and to her, and how this angered everyone in the family.
Not an hour ago, Laura received a call from her mother saying her grandfather John Westhoven passed away this morning. He was 101.
I did not know the man, but I hear he was magnificent. I know Laura to be one of the more visionary people I've ever met - with intuition, style and good fortune for days. A touch of the prophetic in there as well, prone to plucking things from the air.
Laura, her mother and myself all think someone may have just paid her a visit this morning.
As if the circumstances surrounding John’s death weren't beautiful enough, I've noticed other lovely layers that point to the strength of her connection with him and his passing visit in the wind.
John Westhoven died with the sun overhead in Sagittarius, last sigh of light before winter, and the waxing moon in Aquarius, fixed air sign and center of winter's empty lungs — same as they were when Laura was born.
And the strange thing about the cat door she sawed an opening for in the wood: it doesn't properly shut or fall back to its plastic framing. Like some factory error perhaps correctable by hand, it stays open when pushed, inviting air from the outside in…