Embrace love

One of the great things about creative activities is how they let you remember the past and keep it close in your heart.

No one in my past is more important to me than my grandmother Alice (my beloved dog Butter is a close second--but I imagine them both waiting for me in heaven. Yes, me the agnostic!).

Grandma was truly as close to a saint as you can get. She was kind and funny and loving and warm and practical and hardworking and reasonable. She seemed so comfortable with herself and never had a bad word to say about anyone. Everyone still raves about how special she was, what a rare flower. She and my grandfather Walter had a relationship to be envied--they truly enjoyed one another, even 50 years on. I remember laughing with them over dinner so many nights in their Manhattan apartment. He called her and her three sisters "The Rosebuds."

Alice passed away over a decade ago, but I think of her almost every day and feel so lucky to have had her in my life. (I was actually alone with her the night before she died. The last thing she said was "I hope I can sleep now...")

Anyway, I wanted to honor her and emulate her, so I made the collage you see here. I loved working with old photos of her and my grandfather (who was quite a character himself).

I hung the collage in my office, where everyday it reminds me to "embrace love." Because there's nothing more important than that...