Guardian Angel II

The light will soon be shining down on Guardian Angel II at this location. She is my daughter Julie. I use the phrase "shining down" because I have today googled the phrase Guardian Angel and found that the Old Testament has much to say about Guardian Angels. I too have much to say - in writing - but only one at a time. I write this on Saturday afternoon here at apartment 3B, 3:47 in the afternoon and will make writing II my Sunday project. 

Julie had planned her trip so carefully, flying Iceland Air via Keflavik as I have so many times. Then finding a home away from home where she would be in My Forest, Delsjöskogen just a short morning walk away from my apartment which is located at the lower northern end of the road that leads up to what I will call sister Annika's pond, the pond Annika runs around and swims in as often as possible.

Julie in my kitchen after her morning walk from the House In The Forest I will call MO.

Julie made that walk at least 6 times, choosing a different route each time so she as botanist-ecologist got to see different parts of the forest that I myself had run in so many times after moving to Göteborg in the spring of 2019. Most important to me, home alone at 3B was that we talked about our family history and our relationship at different times during more than 60 years. From that perspective, her visit became one of the very best I have ever experienced. I really got to know her, know facets of her life and abilities that she has developed during all the decades when only met sporadically for short times.

Julie Takes On IRS form 1040 SR - Guardian Angels, non biblical ones, are great to watch in action when they like a magician reach into their bag of tricks and relieve their person in focus of some until then worrisome almost impossible task. While I reclined on my couch Julie sat at my computer and went to work on the US Internal Revenue Service tax form for Seniors (SR). She talked to herself about every one of the countless steps that the IRS burdens its taxpayerss with and carried out a virtuoso performance filling everything induring Trial I. Trial II can wait a while.

She even did Ann's 1040 SR during one of her visits, hardly knew which one.

PAUSE 09:05

One of the most important things a Guardian Angel can do for a person who no longer walk solo is to take on the role of ledsagare Swedish for one who leads another to which I add  "and does so attentively and even with loving care. The man you see above had been running in two Swedish forests almost every day for more than 20 years and the same during every visit to Vermont in the summer.

To rather abruptly find that you not only cannot run but cannot even walk along is life-changing. It takes time for the video to be ready to play, hope it gets there. You will see Julie swinging along with me up at Delsjön. I sat down while she and Annika went down to the water. I photographed the horizontal fallen beech trees.

Julie and John drive north from Julie's house in Albany to the Adirondack Mountains and even in the forest close to their glamping site the American beech trees are diseased and falling down.

And, since I love remembering and reflecting on the days when I was so mobile that I could go up trails on my two favorite Green Mountains, Camels Hump and  Mount Mansfield while camping in a shelter on Mount Philo I will thank my two daughters for giving me those mountains. Julie led me to Mount Philo and Annika to Camels Hump. There is a bench on Mount Philo with a plate on which I thank them for that gift. And oddly, I suddenly remember that the first early signs of changes in my ability to walk revealed themselves during my final visit to Mount Philo. I tried to walk over the rock outcrops to the observation point, and I simply could not do that. So in 2018 something was going on.

Here is one of the most dramatic things I learned about Julie on her very last day here. She had discovered that there was something not quite right in version I of 1040 SR so she swung into action at this computer. I had already booked the taxi that would take her to the train station and never in a million years could I have sat down here and gone through the entire form changing, saving, printing, adjusting  as she did, cool as a cucumber. I kept quiet and just watched in awe. Time was running out and  with only 10 or 15 minutes remaining she printed the form, I signed it, and she put it in an envelope to take with her to America.

That is one of the many reasons that I have written above that this one of the very best times I got to spend with JAL in my entire life. Yes, even there something good had come as a result of something not so good. You can read about such things in Marilynne Robinson's newest book, Rereading Genesis that will turn up here next week.

Julie the sun is shining down on our forest and I miss you.