I prefer my blog to be a commentary on my life, not a daily diary. But there are times that require actual information; otherwise, my opinions or thoughts start to sound cryptic and downright silly after a while. Context matters.

Also, there are some oddities and ironies to this moment that, were they written in a story, would be too far-fetched to believe. So here are a few facts that will probably be a necessary context for the next few months.

Believe it or not -
July 5, 2005, I found out I was pregnant. I was elated and naive and it never occurred to me to be worried, so I told everyone standing still that I was going to have a baby. It didn't happen that way; August 1, 2005, I miscarried.

Fast forward - through sadness, Kansas, Everyone's Favorite Coffe Shop, prayers of those more faithful than me, and YAY! a healthy pregnancy. That ended on December 19, 2006, with the birth of my happy boy.

And then it's now. Well, not now - July 5, 2007. I was starting to suspect I could be pregnant, but it wasn't confirmed for a few more days. I fretted over the timing but settled down once I had positive test results. HCG was fine, progesterone was fine; I had a healthy, albeit young, pregnancy. Until last Thursday, when I started having symptoms that gave cause for concern (I'm not squeamish, just aware of the mixed company in the room). My fears were confirmed on Friday, then today, when I saw the doctor. I'm having a D&C tomorrow.

Tomorrow, August 1, 2007.

So, there you have it. There's really nothing to say, so don't worry. I'm not expecting anything from you. But I know myself well enough to know this will be the source of my commentary the next few months, and I wanted to avoid the silliness of talking around something unnecessarily.

It's a sad day. Sad, but not unbearable. I have Asher. I have both a physical and spiritual family that love me, and that I love. I have faith in a God bigger than sad days, whom I won't pretend to understand. And I have Brian. That's a lot.

In a way, tomorrow will be a relief. It will be over. And the commentary can begin.

My grammatical heritage fails me: I have no idea how to properly notate a quote from a play posted on another website. A quote of a quote, if you will. So I will say instead that Emily posted the quote below this morning, and if you aren't keeping up with Emily's story, you're missing out.

I once saw a group of little girls on a Mississippi sidewalk, all dolled up in their mothers’ and sisters’ cast-off finery, old raggedy ball gowns and plumed hats and high-heeled slippers, enacting a meeting of ladies in a parlor with a perfect mimicry of polite Southern gush and simper. But one child was not satisfied with the attention paid her enraptured performance by the others, they were too involved in their own performances to suit her, so she stretched out her skinny arms and threw back her skinny neck and shrieked to the deaf heavens and her equally oblivious playmates, “Look at me, look at me, look at me!”

And then her mother’s high-heeled slippers threw her off balance and she fell to the sidewalk in a great howling tangle of soiled white satin and torn pink net, and still nobody looked at her.

I wonder if she is not, now, a Southern writer.

– Tennessee Williams, preface to first edition of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

For those of you keeping up with my doctor's office drama, it all hit the fan this morning. I won't tell the whole story, because I really don't expect you to care. But here are a few highlights:
a. Round One ended when I yelled at the dispatcher that I am just trying to see a doctor, and I don't see what the big deal is. So, she took a message.
b. In the second round, I refused to hang up with the dispatcher until she connected me directly to a phone nurse. I was not going to leave a message. If she wanted to hang up on me, it was her decision, but I wasn't getting off the phone until I spoke to someone.
c. Eventually I was connected to a nurse, who told me that I could not see my doctor today. She also inferred that I didn't need to see a doctor, because she was telling me what I needed to know. I began WEEPING (yes I did). I told her that I am sure she knows what she's talking about, but this is why I HAVE a doctor, and if he doesn't have time for me today, I won't be bothering him again.
d. At which time my doctor himself called me. He apologized several times, and spent half an hour on the phone with me discussing my concerns. Medical concerns, not the office staff. Though he got an earful about them, too. I told him it was a zoo, and that no one has been professional, not to mention compassionate or knowledgeable, yet. I also told him I haven't decided if I'm staying with his practice or not. Though I have to say, his phone call went a long way with me.

So. Don't be deceived, Front Desk Ladies of the World. I will prevail.

normal life

Whenever something sad happens, there's a quarantine effect that occurs. Let's be clear - I am the primary reason for such an effect. People call and I don't answer. It isn't fair, but it's what I do. But the thing is, I've been in the house for two days now. I'm ready to go out, and I don't want to talk about sad things. I want to talk about Harry Potter (because I finished the book last night!) and pass out some of the 937 pictures of Asher from earlier this week. Call it denial, call it coping, call it whatever you want. I'd like to have normal life for a few hours.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, well - it seems we're one for three.

But I don't want to talk about that this morning. I'm sure I will - in time, for a time, it will be all I think about. But not yet.

Instead I'll tell you that we had good news from the mortgage company, and are excited about buying a house this fall. We've started looking, and it seems like we're probably going to have to make a choice sometime soon: Do we live in the neighborhood we're in now (that we love love love) in a small house, or do we look at larger houses in a not-as-fun neighborhood? A perfectly safe, perfectly respectable neighborhood, just - not as fun. (By the way, I feel too young to say this, but the other neighborhood has a better elementary school, too). We'll have to decide in the next few months.

About Harry Potter - all's well that ends well. I would love to talk about it, but people are still reading , and that's just not fair. Still, I will say one small thing: Molly Weasley and Lilly Potter are characters I understand. And I LOVE that Molly got the part she did in the big fight scene. LOVE IT. Someone said on another site that it was JK Rowling saying to her children, this is how much I love you. I have no idea if that's true or not, but I love it all the same.

Anyone have American Airline skymiles they can donate? Shaun Groves is looking for some for a dying friend. Read about it here.

Last thing - I hate cheap diapers. They don't absorb, which doesn't sound like a big deal, except that I've changed Asher's sheets I don't even know how many times this week. And when it's a dirty diaper, they make a huge mess. Sorry if I'm getting too graphic, but it SPREADS, and now you have poo everywhere that a diaper usually goes, and a squirmy baby that likes to kick and find less visible body parts and ... yech. Can you believe I bought diapers for the first time this week? We've been fortunate; We were given enough diapers as gifts to last us 7 months. 7! Anyway, we're not scrimping on diapers. I don't care if they are double the money - Pampers are worth it.

1/3 through The Deathly Hallows ...

and all I have to say is this: Voldemort is a made-up evil, but Umbridge exists. She is much scarier in my mind.

I love the (Southern? probably) tradition of hanging family portraits in the hall. I don't know where along the way I picked this up as a good idea, but in my mind, someday our future hall is going to be covered in portraits of existing and future children.

I took Asher to have his pictures made today. Janet took pictures for me in April, but he's in a new stage now, so I took him for his first portrait-type pictures. It was more fun than Christmas. I wish wish wish I had a way to post them, because the kid is seriously CUTE. Anyway, as I was walking out of the studio, roughly 632 pictures of my child under my arm, my first thought was, I'm going to need a bigger hallway.

Which we're working on, actually. We've started the process of house hunting. We're not in any hurry, but it's exciting all the same. In the meantime, I've started my hallway collection.

the cool syndrome

I have this vague memory of being twelve, asserting my tween independence by staying up later than anyone else in the house to watch the Arsenio Hall show. An oldish guy who was running for something came onto the stage and played the saxophone. I was embarrassed for him. Isn't he somebody in politics? Why is he in Arsenio Hall's band? Will the crowd bark their support, or laugh him off the stage? I think I remember an appreciative bark, but I can't be sure. Then came boxers or briefs. It's been downhill ever since.

Last night the Democratic presidential candidates held a debate and answered questions from YouTube. Obama and Clinton have both used YouTube for political advertisements, as well. You gotta hand it to Hillary Clinton - she is really doing everything within her power to muster up all the coolness money can buy.

The goal is, what? To be the hip candidate? To appear accessible, down to earth? All of the above, probably, and more. But is this really what we want in a President? Shouldn't there be a touch of nobility in the next leader of the free world? I am confident that every political candidate knows how to access the Internet, or at least how to hire someone who does. I'm just not sure I care. I'm not sure I need him (or her) to Rock the Vote or to be folksy. I'd prefer articulate, experienced, innovative, passionate. Peaceloving, hopeful, smart. Not necessarily cool.

the mountain of health

I wrote the best post in my head the other day.

Really, it was good. I was hiking along the south plateau loop in Monte Sano State Park, and I wrote to you all, to tell you how much I love the woods, how I breathe better out there, and This World is Not Conclusion, etc. I even brought a notepad with me and stopped at an overlook to write it all down, but somewhere along the way I'd lost my pen. Alas. So I had no choice but to keep walking and thinking poetic thoughts.

It was going to be really good, I promise. But now that I'm back in the apartment, with the laundry going and a sleeping baby in the next room, I can't remember the transitions. I can only remember phrases. So here it is - a bullet list that could have been magic, had I not dropped my Bic.

* Wednesday night Brian said, "One day, let's be the guy who lives at the state park. Let's have that job sometime." We started talking about all of the other jobs that would be fun - guides for rafting or hiking always always make the short list. It used to be our dream, to raft in the summer and ski in the winter. In the past year, I'd forgotten that. I'd traded possibility for health insurance. I believed the lie that consistency always trumps risk. Where we are is exactly where we want to be, for now. But this world is not Conclusion, remember? Neither is this town.

* In the woods I remembered who I am. The woman who lives in an apartment and goes to the grocery store and spends naptime drinking coffee with friends - it's not that it's not true, it's just incomplete. It's an abbreviated version of me. How did I let that other part go? I don't know.

* Silence is more than a state of being. It is also an emotion and an experience. Like Hawthorne's happiness and Dickinson's hope, silence, too, must find me. I always run into it with the same white-knuckled intensity I apply to everything else (to my detriment, usually). But when I approach it that way, it always eludes me. I notice the gnats, the ant on my toe, and wonder, when can I talk again? But Silence, she's tricky that way. Because once I feel it I don't want it to end.

* White-knuckled intensity has been the topic of conversation lately. Last week Brian said I always seem tense. I was shocked. Tense? I'm not! I love my life, even the repetition of it most of the time. As we talked, I saw that the drive, a concentration bordering on obsession I inherited unapologetically from my mother, that has served me well so far, was deceiving my husband. I'm not tense. I'm focused. I used to be focused on lots of things - a caseload of children who need, need, need; the next assignment; the next meal; the next bill; the next appointment ... Only now I'm just that focused on our home. Again, while I am exactly where I want to be right now, if I put this much attention into my children and home for their entire formative years, I fear it will become oppressive. In short, some day I'm going to need a job, so that I don't drive my family into therapy. But for now, if you see me furrowing my brow over the kitchen sink, don't mind me. I'm actually enjoying myself immensely.

in no particular order

the view from the cabin, downtown, and the woods

home

I've just come home from two days on Monte Sano, which translates literally as the "Mountain of Health," and indeed it was. But more about that later.

I spent two days in a cabin with Brian, Asher spent two days with his grandparents, and we all lived to tell the tale. Asher learned to wave in my absence, though he refuses to perform his new trick for me. I swear he got bigger while I was gone, too, but of course I'm probably the only person who would notice or care. And my mom has finally been released from the seventh grade! In a few weeks, she'll begin teaching tenth grade English and creative writing in her home county. No more commute and no more tweens - yay!

So that's my week in a nutshell. More about Monte Sano soon.

"I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name."
- Isaiah 45:3

process stories

* Here's something funny - the women in my life who know specifics about the fuel behind my post yesterday are saying, "Tell them off! Speak up!" While the men are saying, "Be nice. Stay calm." I'm sure that says something significant, but at the moment, I have nothing more than the observation to offer.

* It's a funny thing, how sleepy a baby can be, and yet refuse to nap. My son, who was rubbing his eyes and yawning 45 minutes ago, is still happily babbling in his bed. Why is that?

* I need your input on something. What is the danger of posting pictures/names/personal information about my child on the internet? I understand the protection against online predators, but that seems less likely with babies. What risks am I taking by being so open about him? Should I stop?

* There is an interesting article in New York Times today about Barack Obama's fundraising tactics. Does anyone else think that the fascination with the process this go-round is connected to the popularity of the West Wing? I am reading this article, asking questions like "102,000? Is that the mean, or the median?" Would I have ever cared about this article before I became obsessed with Josiah Bartlett and his staff? Probably not. If I'd read it at all, I would not have understood it. But now I understand the significance, if not all the data and terms. Though, for the record, they totally should have called the article "Barack the Vote." Thank you, Jed Bartlett, for a newfound interest in process stories.

Dear Front-Desk Ladies in Doctors' Offices of the World,

Hi. It's me; we see one another a good bit. I'm almost always rolling my eyes at you. I'm sorry for that. I understand there are many many many many patients in the world, and I (and my child) are but one (er, two) of the gazillion things you have to do today. I really do. I also understand you are most likely incredibly underpaid to put up with demanding folks like myself, who would like for phone calls to be returned within a few hours and who balk when herded like livestock. I understand this is just your job, and man, do I ever respect that, having shepherded my own line of endless hurried people wanting what they want NOW, and how the line never ends and my day wouldn't, either. I really do get that, and I wish you well in life. May your children live long and be prosperous, may you be lucky in love, may you be spared varicose veins and carpal tunnel syndrome. Et cetera.

But here's what you need to know about me: You're just filling up your day, but I'm not. I am not just doing a job, I'm thinking about my (or my child's) well-being. It's my CHILD, my BODY, and both are the only one I've got. I'm interrupting five minutes of your time, but I will spend my entire day deciding if I should call you, what I will say, how to respond to the particular issue in the meantime. I will be up at 1 a.m. thinking about this, wondering if I should have called the day before and if it's a sleepy cry or a pained cry that I'm hearing now. So keep that in mind, please. Roll your eyes if you must, but do what I need all the same. And I will do my best not to displace all of my worry and frustration onto you.

Have a good day.

Stephanie

update

* Today is my anniversary. I never get used to the fact that this life that I have and love - it all started seven years ago today. Without that one day, none of the others could have happened.

* Yesterday was Sawyer's (my nephew of sorts) first birthday and baptism. If you have never been to a one-year-old birthday party, you have no idea how fun they are. I read a poem in the baptism ceremony, and got choked up. Which was uncharacteristically sappy of me, but I looked up and Sawyer was staring right at me, with those big blue eyes and white linen overalls, and it was just too much - the promise of the Covenant and the promise of life and possibility celebrated in a first birthday all at the same time. I read The Lamb, by William Blake, from Songs of Innocence, for those who care about that sort of thing.

* I'm reading We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates. I've read short stories by her, but this is my first of her novels.

Catherine asked, "What do you take with you?" It is a question worth answering, and I feel certain I could write an eloquent response, were it not for my baby-addled brain and miles to go before I sleep. So I'm posting an old entry instead. When I left Birmingham, this is what I carried with me ...

I have a Home key on my computer keyboard. I've never noticed it until just now, just this minute, as I was beginning to gather my thoughts on the word. It's an interesting thought … push this key, go back to where you started. Go back to what's familiar and try again. I pressed the key, curious if such a thing were possible.

Nothing happened.

For my mom's birthday, I unpacked the remaining boxes in her new house. My parents built a beautiful house on the Coosa River, and, true to their nature, subsequently spend most of their time sitting on the back porch, hooting at the owls and smoking (Dad said recently, "We should have just bought a double-wide and built a good deck, for the time that we spend inside the house"). While enough was unpacked in the initial move-in-push to be able to wash clothes or find a book, there were still boxes lining the hallways, waiting for someone to find a place for the miscellany. So, as part of her gift, I spent a day sorting the innumerable stacks of papers and cleaning out baskets of pennies and paper clips.

Surrounded by loose piles mentally labeled "keep," "throw away," and "other," I found, among other things, little pieces of each family member's personal history. My dad's pictures from the year he spent in Vietnam, when Bob Hope performed for the soldiers on Christmas Day. A bulletin from a classical performance my mom attended with her piano instructor when she was in high school. My learner's permit. My pictures from Chrysalis. My sister's trip to Europe. The trip my parents took to New Orleans in 1998, all of those old homes and older trees nothing but debris now. The year my sister spent in the dorm, one picture after another of smiling girls, strangers to themselves and each other. My grandmother's pictures, inherited after her death, her memories of our lives, pictures I'd never seen, though I remember when they were taken. My grandfather walking my aunt down the aisle on her first wedding day. Box after box of loosely connected memories. As I thumbed through them, most of the pictures had no meaning for me.

My mom wanted me to sort the pictures, give each person their own pile for their own memories, keep my grandmother's things separate from ours. Sort: generation, by individual, by age. As if our lives could be detangled that easily.

I didn't do it. I put them all in one box. My memories stacked on top of Allison's underneath my dad's, my grandmother's sitting on top of us all. I love to think about it now … our history, all mingled and messy, sitting in a box in the upstairs bedroom, labeled "Life before 2005." I love it because this is what a family is … a general sense that we're all in this together. That this is where I've been, and because I went, in a sense, you've been there too. I took you with me when I went, the hope of you or the dread of you or the silly stories of what we did when we were little, and when I came back, you were changed by the way the experience changed me. This fundamental similitude is the cord blood for each of us, the basic material of what it means to have a home, and of what we will need to continue to grow. It's all in one box, and I won't look through that box again for a long time, because I don't need to. I don’t need the pictures, or even the memories. I just need what they mean.

The home key on my computer doesn't work, but it's okay; I don't need it. I don't need it to take me back, because I don't need to start over … I just need to know it's there, need to know where I've been, so that I can have the freedom and confidence to move forward. Everyone needs a home they can leave.

in defense of Oprah, but not Jeffrey Eugenides. afterwards, some miscellany.

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. (By the way, I'm at the computer that won't let me italicize, so pretend that all book titles are, for the rest of this post). It's the new Oprah's Book Club book - and before you roll your eyes at Oprah's Book Club, I would like to defend it. First of all, Oprah has gotten many, many, MANY more people to read something more than magazines (no offense to magazines readers of the world, of course). Second, she usually picks good books. White Oleander and Poisonwood Bible were both Oprah books, for example. So not only are more people reading, but more people are reading literature. Only good things can come from that. Not everything mainstream is silly.

Anyway, Middlesex. If you are considering it - read at your own risk. It's been a few years since I read it, but I remember that I liked it, inasmuch as it is an interesting and well-written book, and guaranteed not to fit into a Lifetime two hour block. But I remember it being gratuitously explicit a few times. It's probably the unintended consequence of being a well-written book; Mr. Eugenides enjoys a good descriptive paragraph. But it just got to be a bit much for me after a while. Opinions are like noses, and all that, but that's mine.

Now, the miscellany:

1. Two completely unrelated quotes from my week:

From Brian, to me last night, after it had started to storm and I was lamenting the possibility of another evening without power: "Your optimism is broken, do you know that?"

From me, to Brian, as I stumbled over my words on the phone: "Babyhood has addled my brain. I keep forgetting words like 'shoe.'"

2. A baby who was all partied out.



3. I love the Everyday Life as Lyric Poetry blog. I really really love it. If ever their real-life paths cross, Catherine McNiel would sit and eat lunch with Mikkee and Elizabeth and Carrie, and I would listen to them and enjoy myself immensely. They would love one another, these women would. Also - many of my blogging friends aren't parents, so you may not appreciate the courage it took for Catherine to talk about issues with nursing. Nursing is the third rail of parenting conversations; you touch it, you die. You cannot IMAGINE how heated this conversation can get. So. If you haven't read her blog lately, go now. She's much more articulate than I am today.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

snippits from my morning

1. My mom has been teaching seventh grade English for ten years, and she loves her work (almost as much as she loves to work). One of her favorite dinner time soap boxes is the No Child Left Behind Act, and the impact it has had on special education, standardized testing, teachers, teaching, etc. She wrote about it this morning - if you are at all interested in public education, you'll enjoy my mom's blog today. It's a good soapbox, well informed and not without merit.

Incidentally, she mentions that she has quietly shared her input ... quietly? I don't know about that. "Quiet" is just not the word that comes to mind when I think about my mom and education. "Quietly" as a synonym for "meekly" - definitely not. "Quiet" as a euphemism for "nonviolent resistance" - perhaps. You decide.

2. The Today Show is saying this morning that praising your kids too much creates too high of a standard for them to maintain when they're older, and it doesn't teach them how to deal with failure. The example they gave is Little League, and every kid on the team getting a trophy for participating. What are they learning from that? What does a trophy signify, if everybody gets one just for showing up?

When I first started a blog, one of the things I said I'd never do was create more space where I didn't say what was really on my mind. I am susceptible to the disease of trying to please people, or at least, trying to say what I think I'm supposed to. I'm not going to do that here - at least, that's what I said two years ago.

So this is me, saying more than I normally would publicly, and more than likely wishing later I could take it back.

This past week was the anniversary of the first time I found out I was pregnant (a pregnancy that resulted in miscarriage, and was pretty traumatic for me, for those who don't already know). And I'm over it. 364 days a year it rarely comes to mind, and if it does, it's the memory of a very sad but fruitful time. Without it, we would have never had our own sacred journey, and then who would we be? Also, I have this beautiful precious baby boy now. It's not that one could ever replace another, but the void of childlessness has been filled. So I promise that I really have moved on. I really am happy. 364 days a year.

But the remaining day was this week. Unfortunately, I am not a normal sad person - I can't just cry and eat ice cream and stay in my pajamas. Not me. Instead, I get withdrawn and moody and everyone IRRITATES me and why won't they just leave me alone already? Except that when I'm alone, I start saying, where'd everybody go? Don't leave me by myself! I am not easy to like when I get like this. Which, thankfully, isn't very often. But it is right now.

It's my week in the rotation to lead toddler church, and I love to be around toddlers more than most, but I just couldn't eek out the composure for it this morning. Brian said, "Why don't you take Asher to my mom's?" But my response was, "I need to be around Asher right now more than anyone else. He reminds me of all the best parts of this."

So I guess that's why I'm writing this. Because he IS the best parts of this, the best of what can happen. Love is a risk. One heartbreak and one squirmy cuddly boy are what I have to show for my risks so far. I'd say I've been pretty lucky.

If you want to make a million bucks,

learn how to check babies' ears for an infection. Seriously, I wish there was a screening station for the doctor's office. Don't you think there should be? Someone to say - yes, you need to see a doctor, or no, you just have the crud. I could walk in, sign in, and see a nurse within 15 minutes (this is how you KNOW this is a pipe dream). She could look at his ears and throat and tell me what I know is already coming. "Ears are fine. No strept. It's viral; go home." My life would be exactly three hours less complicated. Because it's always the crud, but how can I know for sure it's not his ears, unless I take him in? I lug us in, feed him in the waiting room, try very hard not to touch anything (like doorknobs and toys) that are especially germy, wait and wait and wait and wait and wait, spend a very few minutes with a very sweet pediatrician, and leave with a "crud" verdict every time. Argh. Are advanced degrees really necessary to look in someone's ears? Don't get me wrong - I L-O-V-E his pediatrician, but my life would go on if I saw her a little less often. I'm just sayin', is all.

P.S. Brian should go on a gameshow. I mean it. He retains information like no one you have ever seen, and he thinks well under pressure. I'm telling you - this guy can tear up some Wheel of Fortune.

day 13

Because he's right. Read Steven's blog today.

another way to fast

I just wanted to tell you guys that a non-blogging friend of mine has chosen to participate in the 40 Day Fast, too. I really like her idea, so I thought I'd share it. Instead of fasting from food for one full day, she's fasting from t.v. for 30 minutes every day (she's really not home very much, and lives a very full life, so to give up 30 minutes of downtime is a significant sacrifice). Rather than watching television, she's using those 30 minutes to pray for the causes that matter most to her. I've tried to think of ways to participate all 40 days, and not just 2. So far, I think her idea is the best way to do that.

Just thought I'd pass it along.

two interesting things

Interesting Thing 1:
All Thing's Considered's "This I Believe" essay for today is really good. It's written by a peace activist in Iraq who was kidnapped and held for six months. He talks about how all of humanity - the torturers and the tortured alike - are connected to one another. Like I said, it's really good. You can read it here.

Interesting Thing 2:
This is a really interesting post. In it, Catherine (whom I met because we share a love of the name Asher) talks about how we read The Old Testament through a New Testament worldview. So, when the Psalmist refers to hope in the midst of suffering, we think of the hope of the resurrection and eternal life. But the writers of the Old Testament didn't believe in eternal life, and didn't yet know about a resurrection. She isn't arguing against eternal life; what she's saying is that there is hope in the moment as well as the future. That the kingdom of God - I'm saying this part - is in the present, too. She writes, But imagine life within a community that lifted you up to Him in the midst of busyness, pain, and distraction. Imagine the purity of worship that praised God for his faithfulness, eternal nature, and beauty while not expecting to see more of it that we already had. Imagine the preciousness of every moment, every smile, song, and blade of grass if we truly believe they are gifts from the Creator, given to us for this very moment, and that our enjoyment of them is limited to this day. I told you it was good.