The moment of learning

DOB (Dad of blogger) brought more pictures of the family from the 1920s to the 2000s.  Quite a span.

I saw two pictures of my Mom attending Cousin Gentle’s Tai Chi class.  She still had hair, so it had to be 1996 or 1997.  It was part of her regimen to control the pain from cancer.  She had such faith in Cousin Gentle, and illness opened her (and the rest of the family) to non-Western medicine.  It was the age of humility for our family.  We learned that being doctors and lawyers was not the only measure of success and that we needn’t exclude ancient practices when western medicine had no answers.

We learned.  We evolved.  We opened our minds and our hearts.  And we resolved we would not close up again when Mom died.  Here are pictures of the turning point of the trajectory of our family:

Together we moved, slowly, in the beat of Tai Chi, to a more open, more humble place.  I remember that time, that moment, when we didn’t have the luxury of smugness and hubris.  We are better for it, although it was sickness that opened our minds, our hearts and our soul.