Intermission

Sigh Yon Aura

By on • ( 37 Comments )

Hey, Folks.

Quick one, this time.

I was originally going to do another round of Snippets from Tammy, sharing past conversations and mildly-crazed stories. (“Oh, look, here’s the letter she wrote to Scotch the Cat in the voice of her dog Petey!”) But then, as I reviewed and reflected, I realized that it was time to let things go softly into the night, move the grief offline, get back to the roots of Bonnywood, stiff upper wit and all that.

But I will share one last thing.

The box.

Remember that? The one that her husband sent me, the one that happened to arrive on the same day I Heard the News? The one I haven’t been able to open, dreading the wallop such an act might bring?

I just opened it.

I don’t know how much planning Bruce put into what he selected to send me, but I’m going to let my heart believe that he knew exactly what he was doing. Those of you who have been with me at Bonnywood for a while will instantly realize the perfection of the choice…

 

It’s a Christmas house. For my Christmas Village, the source of so many stories over the years. (Yes, I cried a little bit, but not much, as joy quickly won that race.)

Naturally, I used my trusty “albumen” filter in PaintShop to give the photo that “Bonnywood Look”, welcoming the new addition to The Village.

The thought that Tammy will now be with me, forever more, during the hope and promise of the holiday season?

Well, that’s just right as rain.

Thank you, Bruce.

Cheers.

 

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37 replies »

  6. I can’t wait for the Christmas Bonnywood village this year. Promise me you’ll do it up spectacularly! If I can keep going another year with metastatic breast cancer you can resurrect Bonnywood for me. I think I smell a fundraiser coming on! Let’s discuss. Perhaps we can raise awareness for Living Beyond Breast Cancer – lbbc.org for which I am a patient advocate and do something virtual since in person fundraising is out of the question due to bad leadership and an ongoing pandemic thats kept people with compromised immune systems inside for the last 7 months and no end in sight with the upcoming flu season nearly upon us. I’m seriously going insane. But that’s another story for Bonnywood this year!

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    • First, I will definitely do it up this year. Last year was a bit of a fizzle, so I really haven’t done anything flashy since Your Villlage.

      Second, I would be happy to do what I can for you and LBBC. But I should caution you that I’m very shy and awkward, so whatever vision you might create should keep me discreetly tucked away from purview. I’ll let you run the show and I’ll be the stagehand, that sort of thing.

      Just throwing this out there: Maybe part of the project could involve snaps of individual houses paired with success stories or patient bios? Merely thinking out loud…

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      • Love that and of course you’ll be behind the scenes. What about contest entries based on each house. 10 bucks per entry and the winner is voted on by everyone who enters and anyone who reads the stories – # of likes – maybe 1 dollar per like?
        To raise more –
        1st place – best village story (50 dollar entry fee -but more publicity bigger logo best cache)
        1st place – each building 10 bucks an entry – building logo a little less publicity – we will work all this our but toss some ideas back at me. This way it would not allow someone to rig the winner -and theyll get a nice logo to go on their blog or site of their choosing 100% of the proceeds go on a go fund me site and 100% of those go to living beyond breast cancer maybe a copy of your book goes to the winner of the village story and we get a hat from LBBC, I can do an Etsy gift certificate of 100 dollars in my shop (publicity for your books and for my shop wrapped into the whole she-bang) but calming down here I will speak with the powers that be at Lbbc.org for whom I’m a patient advocate and ask then what’s the appropriate and proper protocols for such a fundraiser as we may send the entrants directly to the LBBC site to give their donation/entry fee. I think it’s an awesome way to raise awareness of metastatic breast cancer. Stage 4 terminal cancer has no cure. Yeah, yeah everyone is going to die, but 1/8 women will be handed a breast cancer diagnosis in their life and 40 percent of them will be diagnosed with secondary or metastatic breast cancer – when it moves beyond the breast. Thus the organizations name living beyond breast cancer. It’s not a battle or a fight. When we die we aren’t losers. We don’t lose – we die. And the funding for research is only 5-7% of all breast cancer research funding. Sad stats indeed. But…there’s a way to help and you’re a gem my dear. How long do we know each other? 5 years. That’s crazy – so I appreciate your constant and continued support and your friendship. ❤️

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        • This ALL sounds really swell, but I’ll leave it up to you to check with your organization and see what might be what. I really feel that this particular holiday season is going to be over the top, in a good way, as so many folks have been pummeled in so many ways this year. We should do what we can to celebrate and commemorate and activate all that is good. Just let me know what you need me to do…

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      • OH EM GEE!!!! I love it, love it, love it! I had heard mention of a Christmas Village, but I underestimated the care you put into setting it up! I am hanging my head in shame for underestimating, I should know better by now😔
        I am quite sure that I would become so enchanted you’d have to break out the expensive cheese to lure me away…
        Now, I must read the entire story!😍

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        • I must admit that it was very satisfying as I got notifications that you were working your way through the story. I have a serious fetish about Christmas (in a non-religious way, fair disclaimer). In those years when I have the full Village up and running, I can sit in the middle of it for hours, just watching the lights twinkle and remembering a time of innocence.

          Oh, I should also mention that there’s a second and third series of stories specifically tied to the Village, as well as lots of side bits about Christmas. You can seek them out if you’d like, or you can just wait until December, when I’m sure I’ll drag most of them out and slap a shiny new bow on top of each one… 😉

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  8. Aw. I admit to a welling of tears. That was so thoughtful of him. And now you have a lovely reminder of your good friend who has gone to a good place. I hope to see the little house featured in a post this December. Because we all are gonna need extra joy this Holiday Season I think. If not from one piece of bad news, then from something soul searingly bad. Twenty twenty can’t get gone fast enough. Take care Brian!

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    • I’m completely on the same tear-stained page with you. No slacking this year, as I MUST do a full village. With the way this year has gone, I need it, we need it, everybody needs it, whether they realize it or not.

      Wait, an odd thought JUST crossed my mind. Maybe this year’s layout and theme should be based on the regular visitors to Bonnywood, with little stories to go with each tableau. Hmm. I’ll get back to you…

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      • I think that’s a STUNNING idea! “Thirty one days of Village Stories”. Wow. I hope you run with that one, it would be something so fascinating to read, you might get book fodder out of it, and you could show off (I know you’ve done something similar in the past) your village with the new addition of little stories. That’s wonderful! ❤

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  10. How perfect!
    Yes, I was very curious what was in the box and I’m so glad you shared. Now can you relate one more thing: In your original post, you said you had an idea of what it was. Were you correct? 😉

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    • Actually, I’m glad you asked. I wanted to revisit my original instinct about what might be in the box, for this post, but I couldn’t get the flow right. No, it was not what I (somewhat?) expected it to be. But the actual turned out to be better than the expectation.

      What’s that? You’d like to know what that expectation was? Well, I won’t reveal it explicitly, as hindsight has convinced me that I was being unrealistic (and perhaps a bit selfish, ergo the mild shame in admitting it), but there are repeated hints in the first two Tammy posts, in a sense.

      And you, Nancy Drew, could probably figure it out…

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