Now that I have covered Juanita's fight with breast cancer and her subsequent death from that and the effects of radiation, I want to move on to the following Fall of 1997:

It is a windy day with the wind moaning and whistling around the corners of the house. I opened the front door and stood there looking through the screen door at the leaves swirling in flight...kind of depressing, but yet it moved me to sit down at the dining table and write this poem:

BUFFETED

The wind blew the leaves

Into wild disarray

And gave a sense of confusion

To the newborn morning.

And I, in my instability

From the forces of life,

Felt a kinship with the leaves' displacement.


by William B. Grove
March 1997