The first fact about Eugenie to come to mind is 98, 98 times marvelous. There is no thud of years about her. Entering her Russian salon, each person is received by Eugenie with genuine interest. She reigns amidst her art and historical artifacts, beneath her Russian...
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Our Friends | Barbara, the Beholder
Attending without intention, that describes Barbara – her wide heart, ready smile, glistening eyes, poised blue to find you, always on the verge of discovery, impossible not to still see her urging us outward. The day after her burial, a bird's nest had blown onto her...
Our Friends | John Eilertson: A Pilot’s Story
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”– John 15:13 Through our work, our family has the great privilege of getting to know elders in our community, and to hear stories from their lives. We’ve had the opportunity to care for...
Our Friends | Do You Remember Barbara
“Remember Barbara,” begins a wonderful poem by Jacques Prevert about love and war: the Second World War and the destruction of the French port, Brest; the love of Barbara and the desolate loss of that love. It reminded me of my friend, Barbara, and the Alzheimer's...
Our Friends | The Frequency of the Wood
"Had a lovely trip over to Jura and took a boat out to a whirlpool of the end of the island. Believe it is the third largest in the world and whilst the waters were choppy and lots of undercurrents we did not go round and round in a whirl - which I was slightly...
Poetry Rx | “Evergreen 6.22.15” by Cassidy Macdonald
A poem Cassidy wrote in memory of a beloved Coral Tree client, Mary, a Japanese-American woman, who lived in Irvine and passed away in June, 2015 at 90 years old. Mary was buried at Evergreen Cemetery, in Boyle Heights, in East Los Angeles. Evergreen is one of the...
Cassidy’s Corner | Pope to the Bishop of Brambles
Lexie and Ian knew each other from childhood on the outskirts of Glasgow. Ian was an only child, eager for Lexie’s sisterly advice and culinary tips for his wild bounty of berries: raspberries, brambles, blaeberries and sloes collected from the countryside. Ian...
Cassidy’s Corner | Shortbread and Brawn
My father-in-law liked to read, eat sweets and drink whisky. Most of all he liked to make money. He had an unconscious habit of shaking coins in his hand–a reminder? My mother-in-law used to call him moneybags but that was after they were divorced. Mr. Mac, as I used...
Our Friends | His Strong Toil of Grace
Doug said he didn’t like Shakespeare: “too difficult.” Yet, he quoted Macbeth as he remembered reading every work of Faulkner when he was serving his country in Taiwan in 1967: "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Towards the end of...
Cassidy’s Corner | The Orchard of My Mother
My mother loved to read and to drive fast. When she crashed her car into the handicapped elevator at the back of the library, she didn’t stop reading but she did decide to stop driving. Wisdom does come with age–she was 84. Two years before on Christmas Eve, we had...