Let Her Grow Old: An ode to Diane's essence
Three and a half years ago our mom Diane (Diane Laurene Kelsey McColley) left this earthly sphere in the deep midwinter verging on a verdant spring. The staying power of her gentle essence is strong, and I can feel her with me, especially when a bird or dragonfly alights nearby. I know you know this feeling for someone too. Her brilliance and love for beauty can be captured through a wealth of writings: exquisite poems devoted to the natural world and her abundant, scholarly work on John Milton and other 17th-century poets. Mom wanted to be remembered in writing and made sure that her books and poems were distributed to family members before reaching her later years. She had a particular love for the works of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, and all that is green. If I am slow on the pick-up in reading her scholarly writings, it is because it will bring up a yearning to talk with her: about her ideas, about the language itself, why she chose this word in particular. I would want to further...