In recent years Giving Tuesday has emerged as a preeminent day in late November for everyone around the world to commit to charitable giving as a way to give back to those in need during a season defined by giving. On May 5, in recognition of the crisis charitable causes face in the face of the global pandemic and economic shutdown, a new opportunity to come together in support of your community will be held: #GivingTuesdayNow.
It was almost a year ago that I fell in love with Jane Babin’s poetry. Her son, a former student of mine, had given me her book Pearls in the Pond a few months after she had passed away after an eleven year battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). I found myself immersed in her poems, lectures, thoughts on life and mortality, and coping with her disease.