This is the year when we have learned to grow old, Cornelius and I. How I have dreaded it all my life—the giving up, the “not being able” to do this or that. But now that we are here, and truly settled in, it is like a whole new era, a new world, and I have moments of pure joy such as I never experienced before. It has to be set against pain, fatigue, exasperation at being caught in a dying body, but when I see the tears shining in Cornelius’s eyes when he is moved, I feel as if every day the naked soul comes closer to the surface. He is so beautiful now. I said to Eben that I hate growing old—is it true? I suppose I said it because at that moment life seemed so perilous and love so frail—a breath, and we shall be gone. But now, this morning, I feel that life flows through me in a way it never did before. I can accept Eben’s love now. It used to frighten me, and I had to put barriers up against it to protect myself and Cornelius. Now there is no danger, the current is not short-circuited and I feel lit up by it. I can hug Cathy in a way that perhaps I never did or could hug my own children. Even with Ellen, prickly as we sometimes are and always will be toward each other, some barrier is down since Cornelius’s stroke.

Well, if a bicentennial is chiefly to make one thankful, this one certainly seems to have done so, for none of what I have said so far would be possible without dear old Willard. That’s sure.

There had been rumors that the governor might turn up yesterday, but, thank heavens, we were left to ourselves—his presence, special police and the whole entourage, would have made it all official and pompous instead of any Old Home Day just slightly glorified. Let Willard be itself, come hell, high water, or bicentennial celebrations!