This year has been “the best of times and the worst of times.”  It’s been a year of financial problems for me and too many other people.  It’s been my year of discouraging health problems, too.  As if that weren’t enough, the manager of my building took up heroin dealing in his spare time (even though he wasn’t even one of the many unfortunate unemployed in our nation) and used his passkeys to rob 176 apartments, including mine.

But it was also the best of times.  The crowning glory of the year was the birth of my fifth and littlest grandchild, Sullivan Wong Rockwell aka Huang Luo Yi to my son Oliver and his wife Xiaoling in Beijing in March.  So now I am NaiNai, which means “father’s mother” in Mandarin.  My first blog of 2011 will be about the month I spent in China getting to know Sullivan.

I feel blessed by Luke the Physician, who is also the patron saint of artists, in guiding my hand surgeon to do such a superb job on repairing my right thumb joint so I can draw and paint again.

Luke also wrote down his version of the Gospel story that, regardless of your faith, is a beautiful and moving story of the birth of a child during a time of great fear and despair.  His telling of the flight to Bethlehem, the shepherds and kings and friendly beasts that came to welcome the blessed baby is one that’s perfect for children.  So as an author and illustrator of books for the youngest, who almost had to call it quits because of my useless right hand, yet one who could still call herself, paraphrasing Hokusai, “The Old Woman Crazy About Drawing,” I have a great debt to St. Luke.

With the coming of 2011, I will begin work again, and complete a picture book I started almost two years ago.  It’s good to be back!  So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I also want to join with the angels in singing, “Joy to the world!”  May there be peace on earth, and goodwill toward men.