Note: This is the final post from a series I am calling Christmas 2018 in Massachusetts, which I will archive under Travel. I fly out at 7:30 am tomorrow morning.
Can you imagine the level of comfort I felt in early evening while sprawled out on a lounge chair with Sue and Kiera on their guitars —
— as Drew sat playing games on his phone with the new kitty on his lap, his chair drawn up to the fire.
Mother and daughter were trading songs, with Kiera proudly leading in a song called “Colorado” (she is a freshman at C.U., majoring in environmental design, and has already bagged her first two 14,000 foot peaks, one of them in winter.)
A few hours later, it was time for Sue’s annual Christmas jam with her musician friends. I sat in my same lounge chair and chimed in when I could. Though I did climb a few stairs to take this photo.
I was about to go to bed at 9 pm when Kiera came up to me. I knew she was going to tell me goodbye, since she was leaving in the early morning for five days near Quebec to help coach her old high school cross-country ski team. That reminded me: she had not yet made her promised presentation of projects created for her environmental design class. “Hey Kiera, how about giving your presentation to me, personally, now, sitting on my bed?” She was willing. So we sat on my bed with the musicians in the next room, and focused. No question, the blood of both her grandfather, Patrick Cudmore, a talented architect and inventor, and her inventor uncle Colin, of the Garden Tower Project, runs through this young woman whom I am proud to call my granddaughter.
I’ll end this particular Christmas in Massachusetts saga with two photos of the yet unnamed — though “her middle name is Trouble” — new kitty. One an art pose. The other, her sweet blue-eyed face.
