286/365 Kim C

Quiet strength in an
oldest child

only daughter of a
mother-of-steel you

learned well to shift
between father-humor

and mother-wit, skills you
brought to
the court as setter-hitter-utility

equine-thighed and
low-to-the-ground you moved more
quickly in

four-two than most do
in five-one:

coaching your own daughter
to greatness.

285/365 Char

Tag-along to volleyball, you brought height and fight,
a sensible energy, a humor-filled management style
that led us to victory using sophisticated new offense.

Later at the bar, your deep pockets made you popular,
but they weren't the only thing: generous spirit and
good-natured teasing, Polish self-deprecation all helped.

284/365 Maria

In Mother's Writing Group twenty
years ago, you wrote about losing

sexual desire after your first
child's birth, asking the rest

of us if we'd experienced
the same: unfortunately no -- or

perhaps fortunately for
all of us. Finding like-minded

peers has always been your
need and struggle: still is.

283/365 Lisa A

A decenter-er of spaces, some deserving,
some not: like our "feminist pedagogy"

class, where decentering authority meant it's
absence or the centering of suspect

marginal voices that didn't know what
they were talking about. Strong commitment

to your commitments: worthy of
admiration, but difficult to learn from you.

282/365 Randy

The other high-school "most likely
to succeed" designee, you won the
Bausch & Lomb scholarship: most deserving
and perhaps the propellant to a career
in science, lately digging in
Mumbai -- or was it Dubai -- either a
long way for a plump country boy, cousin
to half-a-dozen others less traveled.

281/365 Terry S

Flash-faced grin under a salt-and-pepper
mustache, hair swept across brow like a

snowdrift but warmer, helpful in a principal.
Your college roommate taught at Penn

State, so you gave advice about my
grad-school trip across country:

"Things're expensive on the Ohio tollway: two
dollars for orange juice!" Still heeded.

280/365 Jackie Z

TAing for you: a minefield, a privilege:
never sure what's next, but happy to be considered
competent and intelligent: these things not automatic.

With tilting amble, perm-fluffed head, you'd think your
way down the halls, unaware of disdain and ridicule,
anger and jealousy: heading a department on the brink.

279/365 Karen-Louise

Bishkek brought us together, intrepid traveler you
who wrote less-than-impressive prose, despite your
profession "journalist" then, now another
incarnation based on assisting others, sharing
expertise, collecting information to be used and re-
used. We both made a good try at friendship, but
too few values in common: except travel.

278/365 Megan J

Was it the late 80s when we
kid-swapped, trading toddlers for
free afternoons of beading, grading,
working with fewer interruptions.

Was it the promise or the prodding that
forced your move from city to extreme
country, so rural the New York Times didn't
exist, asparagus beds rose up instead.

277/365 Helen&Nia

Softball teammates
for years now
hard to believe
a time
before
the lanky
right-fielder
and spring-legged
short-stop
(left-fielder)

How many dogs have shared your home? Otto still
rides high in memory, front seat, team bench.

Together in
suburbs and health,
for richer
or job-loss,
through better and
worse . . . to
best