Lovely Thanksgiving day with my nuclear family, (Bob, David, and Dorian) -- neither grandchildren nor friends were with us this year... .

It was a very special day which turned out to be particularly sweet. Maybe it was the background themes of the Bilal family being played out across town in ICU ... for whatever reason, my own deep appreciation for another year of closeness to my 3 living children was keenly felt.

There was a fire in the grate, turkey roasting slowly, yams a-candying in the warming oven, and a keen sense of my mortality -- aware that the fears of death are lessening with each accumulating year -- and a growing sense of the need to prepare for the day when life will end and forever will begin.

We talked at some length about legacy, estate planning, upcoming property tax payments due, and what about long range plans? I can't recall ever having had such conversations without having them accompanied by sorrow, regrets, punctuated by painful silences. This year it was different. Perhaps Thanksgiving is the appropriate time to delve into such matters; a time when the affects are muted -- softened -- when naturally combined with feelings of love and gratitude.

I have been and am being among the most insanely fortunate women on the planet. I'm still reaching for the brass ring ... and more often than not grasping it successfully.

Next weekend will be spent in Mendocino with a man who means much to me, and with whom I can share those things that can only hold meaning between peers. He's the grownup in my life; someone who knows what my words mean because we're traveling through the same thin slice of eternity together. There aren't too many miles left on either of us, but we're chuggin' along quite nicely, thank you.

There are real generational differences. This may be theoretical to the young, but we both know that those differences are critical to our ability to accepting our mortality and savoring the now as all there is, ever was, or will be.

We'll have supper together this evening (sent the leftovers out the door with the kids after dinner in anticipation) and I'll again enjoy the warmth of feeling cherished.

What a wondrous thing is companionship in these years... .