Synchronicity - A Thanksgiving Memory
Topic: Family
"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger the ungrateful pest of my inner being, "My brother John is home this week from Minneapolis."

'I know,' Mr. Tiger responded decisively. 'He always comes home for Thanksgiving. I suppose you're going to tell me again about that Thanksgiving week back eight years ago.'

"How'd you know?" I asked automatically.

'Because you've been telling that story every time he comes home,' he reminded me without failing to add, 'and I'm sick of it.'

"It's worth listening to again Tige," I determined. "And besides," I said, thinking of all the posts that were lost when I accidently deleted my first blog, "I want the story on my blog again."

'Let's seeeee,' he said, resigning himself to the inevitable, while pretending to strain his recall, 'the story begins when your nephew Matthew was two years old.'

"Yup," I answered before taking over. "It was a Monday. I used to babysit Matty every Monday. On this particular Monday, I wanted to treat him to a surprise day at the New England Aquarium, because not only was he a toddler eager for knowledge, I knew we'd both enjoy a day watching the educational exhibits and the thousands of aquatic creatures."

Mr. Tiger expelled a sigh.

"So we headed into Boston by way of the subway, because I don't drive into Boston unless I have to, especially during a holiday week."

'I've heard that before too,' he coldly threw in.

"The ride into Boston was uneventful as Matt sat contently on my lap watching the scenery from the train windows," I remembered. "We were having a blast - until it was time to change trains. Was it the Orange Line? The Red Line? Or the Blue Line that would take me directly to the Aquarium stop at Central Wharf?"

'You should have found that out before you ventured into Boston with a two year old kid,' charged the pest.

"Yeah, you're right," I agreed, "but I thought I'd remember, having done it several times when my own kids were little. Anyway," I said beginning again, "I figured it'd be easy enough to follow the signs or to simply ask someone for directions."

'It wasn't,' said Tiger from memory.

"I didn't realize how much things had changed. I did my best, carrying Matty in-arms as I made my way up the stairs, over this way, down that way, along the hall, over there, up more stairs, down the stairs to the other side - asking for directions as I went along and finding out, how few subway riders in Boston actually speak English these days," I said, letting out a sigh of my own.

"I finally bumped into a woman who said, "Follow me. What a relief it was to sit down!" I said, "My arms were breaking by now."

'Hmmm,' hummed the pest as I recapitulated.

"Once on the correct train, we happily sat and sat and sat while we waited for the train to start up," I recalled for him, "Until at last, there was an announcement explaining the delay. Something about technical problems on the train."

'That train was going nowhere,' put in Tiger.

"Right." I shook my head and continued. "I looked at my watch," reliving the story and recalling how I felt. "Jeeze, most of the day was already gone. I had to be home by 2:00 because my youngest child, Molly, would be getting home from school."

'You waited another 15 minutes on the Blue-Line train,' said Tiger who knew the story by heart.

"Yes," I said, "which was when the loud speaker repeated the same message about the technical problems."

'What'd you do next?' asked Tiger coaching me along.

"I said to Matty, "Did you enjoy your train ride today Matt?" adding as I do every time I tell the story, "Luckily I hadn't mentioned to him that the plan was to visit the fishes."

'And in conclusion?' prompted Tiger, wanting to get to the end of the story.

"There's more," I told him, "we're coming to the best part."

'So you made your way back...' he said trying to hurry me along.

"That's right," I said, "and again, with baby Matthew in my arms. A two year old can get very heavy, you know," I added.

'He could have walked,' Tiger barked.

"Not in the crowded subway tunnels," I exclaimed before saying, "I wanted to keep him as close as I could as I made my way back over the stairs, down the corridor, over this way and that way. Boy-oh-boy," I added, "was he getting heavy again."

"I decided, since my arms were breaking, that I'd get on the next train to give my tired arms a rest. I could sit with Matt for a bit while I figured out how to get home," I told him.

'The next train arrived, and you got on,' he said clearly bored with my pace. 'Right?'

"Right," I answered. "I must have looked haggard by then because a seat was provided right away."

'And then?'

"After a few shakes of each arm to get the circulation going again, it was not long before I was comfy- with Matthew tucked snugly on my lap," I said in advance of, "I turned, looking for the posted directions I'd need to get home and low and behold, there was my brother Johnny, standing only two feet away!" I said, again feeling the same thrill of excitement I felt eight years ago when I saw him standing there on the same train.

"He had not been home in months and was just off the plane from Logan, taking the subway into the suburbs, where he'd next get a taxi to our families home for early Thanksgiving surprise visit," I told Tiger for the eighth time.

'What a coinicidence,' said Tiger with a roll of his eyes.

"Was it ever! Johnny saved the day," I said, as I finished up retelling my tale, "I was feeling lost in the subway, with my car at the other end of our train ride just when John needed a ride home from Boston for his Thanksgiving visit."

The Price of War
Topic: Family

Belles of St. Mary's after winning a National Championship contest in Minneapolis. I'm in the front row; sixth from the right.
--------
"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger the drill sargent of my psyche, "When I was a kid, I marched with the CYO drill team - The Belles of St. Mary's. I marched with squads of teenagers on Veterans Day, and other holidays, through the streets of Boston and neighboring communities in our crisp red, white and blue uniforms and shiny spit polished white boots."

'Right flank - right,' Mr. Tiger commanded .

"The Veterans Day parades stand out for me, not because I was especially patriotic but because of the people behind the waving flags and cheering crowds. They were wives, mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers of the men whose service we honored," I recalled for him. "Many of them had lost a family member or a close friend."

'About Face,' yelled Tiger.

Playing along, I said back, "At ease."

My thoughts drifted back to another Veteran's Day from our small New England town - Hull, Massachusetts.

When I marched with the Belles, my main concerns were for my appearance, staying in step with the team, and falling out to a soda and and ice cream at the Hull Village playground, after the parade.

While I stood in prayer at our local cemetery, looking over to my family home, which was as close as a stones throw from where The Belles of St. Mary's stood in formation that day, I thought of my father's brother - my uncle John - who died at the ripe old age of 29 in The Bataan Death March.

"Were the other dead soldiers as loved as my uncle John was? Would the gaping hole I felt in my heart for those who died, ever go away? Was the price of war worth it?" I wondered all at once.

Today as we fight a war that didn't have to be, and as Bush & Company continue with the same old lies and the same old sour tune - I'd have to say, I still feel as I did all those years ago. I'd have to say, "We just can't justify the cost."


"By illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq ~ Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world." Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk .

Bringing our Hearts Together
Topic: Family
"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, brazen beast within, "yesterday at church..."

The sassy Mr. Tiger abruptly interrupted before I could even finish my sentence. 'Since when do you go to church?' he snapped.

We could have entered into a long discourse about the nature of my spirituality; that being, that Life, with a capital L, is my church and religion. I hesitated though to go there with the pest, Mr. Tiger, because I didn't have the energy to deal with that particular topic today. I said instead, "I went to church yesterday for my mother's sake Tige," adding, "she wanted her children beside her for Feast of All Souls Day - a day the Catholic Church annually reserves for those who have preceded us in death. Yesterday we lit candles for the Faithful Departed in memory of my dad who passed away on November 28, 2005." I tacked on after a silent moment, "I'm thankful that I went."

There was really no way to bring today's discussion to a close, for it had hardly begun.

I opted to use a quote from my sister Sherry whose humbly expressed words this morning on our family's email chain, summed up the strain we were all feeling at this time last year. Sherry said, "I can't believe we all lived thru last year" to which another sister, who attended yesterday's mass before another for her young niece Jenna, also agreed. We all did. "I can't believe we lived through it either Sherry," said Tricia.

There wasn't much left to say so I ended today's entry with a picture of myself and my dad and a portion of a post originally published on December 5, 2005 at our father's funeral mass.

The eulogy of almost a year ago, was opened with a piece, Let Me Clue You in about My Father, written and read first by my sister Colleen for his 80th birthday and then again on the alter during a three part oration. My brother Joe told those in attendance about how our dad always encouraged him, in spite of his dyslexia - to build his first house, his second house, his third house - which eventually grew into the thriving construction company he owns today.

My contribution to father's eulogy follows:

The other morning I woke up with the words, "his contract was up" on my lips.

Our dad had fulfilled his end of the contract after raising 9 children - two of whom he and my mother buried.

I looked at these words as a message from those on the other side who invisibly hold us close when times get rough. Those words were a perfect way to explain our father's departure, for indeed "his contract was up" and no matter how much he loved his job here on earth, he had been letting us know, since the car accident that broke his neck on Oct 17th, that his "contract was up." The 42 days of hospital care had drawn to a close.

He wasn't going to do it the way Jimmy did. He knew the harshness of sudden accidental death and wouldn't put his family through that again.
He wasn't going to do it the way Danny did either - with a long lingering disease that sucked the life out of him.

The 42 days of hospital care was a gift to us, his family - it was to help us adjust to the end of his contract, even while we visited daily to root him on to health.

On the 42nd day my father said to my mother and sister Sherry, "today is the day." How could they have known that that meant it was the end of his contract?

Sherry's email that night excitedly informed us of his words that she and my mother took to mean a new beginning; for indeed it looked that way.
It turned out to be his best day.
He was up in a wheel chair for the first time.
He was talking lucidly for the first time in weeks.

Sherry told us too that he kept looking at the calendar. Did he know? Did he know that an extension to his contract would have been too hard? Too hard for not only himself but also his beloved Barbara who was his rock.
Looking back, I'd have to say that I think so.

Reflection
Topic: Family















"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the pest who has no sense of the sacred, "I've written a poem to go with this picture of my sister Sherry and my brother Dan - the fourth and fifth siblings of nine."

Downplaying my efforts was Tiger's game - one I wasn't playing today especially after he said, 'A poem? Meaningless drivel more closely resembling rubbish.'

After a chuckle that I couldn't hold back and without further explanation I simply stated before posting my poem, "Today marks the fifth anniversary of Danny's passing - yesterday was Sherry's 53rd birthday. I'm dedicating this poem to both of them."



Reflection

Walking down a street of my dreams
a thought manifestation trickles
in my bones
in my blood
in my soul
pointing towards infinity

Heart and mind
clicking together in perpetual rhythm
for those in spirit - the rest
still in our hands
eternally held together
as world spins evermore.

by Kathy Osborn

Take Two - The Dance
Topic: Family

"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the deprivation within, "I'm home with the flu - or something like it today. I've no energy to blog or to do much of anything else."

'You just wanted a day off from work,' the callous Mr. Tiger said.

I gave him no mind and chose from my lost blog - the one I inadvertently deleted by hitting the wrong button - a post that meant a lot to me. Tomorrow, if I am feeling better, I'll be meeting the new man my daughter Beth has been recently dating. Whose to say he'll be Mr. Right or even anything close to that? Not me and not her. But because it has been a l o n g road for her, the ins and outs too personal to go into here, I'm feeling okay now that things are turning around. And like the Garth Brooks song says at the bottom of the entry - all our lessons really are just part of the dance.

Take Two _ The Dance - originally posted on 22 August 2006 17:08 EDT

The Dance

from The Joy Luck Club: Old Chong, who is stone deaf and says of himself and Beethoven; "We both hear it in our hearts."


"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the pest who dances around my issues, "I don't listen to country music much, but I was blown away today while I was driving with one of my daughters and her two kids. She put a Garth Brooks CD in and the tears just flooded out of me."

Since you cry at the drop of a hat, I can't say that I'm surprised,' commented Mr. Tiger.

"I was Tige. I was surprised I cried. It's been a long time since that kind of emotional stuff has gotten to me," I said and repeated again, "I was surprised I cried."

'Then why did'ya?'

"Because I knew she was telling me via Brook's song that even though her marriage didn't make it, it was worth all the pain she endured when it all came crumbling down and when she thought it could be built again."

'But you knew that all along,' he reminded me. "Haven't I heard you say more times than I'd like to hear - that people have to go through their own lessons in order to get to the other side."

"Yes, I knew and I know all that Tige," I agreed while thinking only to myself, "Having worn the same dancing shoes myself over thirty years ago I did not need to have it spelled out for me. I know each of us has to dance to our own music, no matter how wild and unconventional the beat. In other words, we have to make our own mistakes, get up again and dance to another tune."

To Tiger I said, "When my daughter played that Garth Brooks song - intentionally for me, I do think - it lifted the decay that had been forming in me because of things I couldn't say - wouldn't say. After all this time, I finally knew. I finally knew she was going to be okay and," I added, "so too would I."

Tiger had had enough. He made a growling sound and disappeared but not before I said to him, "It's always worth it."

I posted the words to the song that said it all for me today. A song that could speak to broken marriages or illusions of any kind.

"The Dance"

Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared 'neath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn't I a king
But if I'd only known how the king would fall
Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance
Yes my life is better left to chance
I could have missed the pain but I'd have had to miss the dance

Captains Select / My brother John
Topic: Family
"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the inner pest who is incapable of change, "I think I'll do a post about my brother John, because I hardly ever write about him. He's a fisherman who lives in Minneapolis who now works here, at Captain's Select Seafood, Inc."

'That doesn't sound like much of a boat,' the grouch commented eagerly.

"It's not a name of a fishing boat Tige,' I corrected. "John has fished since he was a young boy growing up along the coast of New England, but lately, since living in Minneapolis, he's worked at seafood market," I said, adding to that, "I'm pretty sure he'd rather be fishing but he likes this job too."

'I was hoping for some pictures of a big catch,' grumbled Mr. Tiger, to which I responded, "If you want fishing pictures from Captain Select Seafood fishing boat, click on their photo gallery. If you want a neat little piece where my brother John is mentioned, read on."

I said too, "I wish I could give a nod to the author but his or her name must have been on the previous page, which I don't have. And I'd be happy too to give proper due to the magazine that my two pages were torn from, but I don't have that either," I said as I typed from an article entitled, Captain's Select Seafood Inc.. It does a pretty good job at capturing my brother's personality and Boston accent.

For an altogether different experience, get yourself over to Captain's Select in North Minneapolis.

When I stopped in, a timid-looking young couple stands in what might be called the vestibule of the building, adjacent to a typically disheveled business office.

"How do we go about purchasing the seafood?" the woman asks.

"Just tell me what you want!" The brusque grizzled east coast voice is John Redman's, who tells me he's not the owner, "just the guy who does everything.

"We don't do retail as a rule, but I'm not gonna turn down a dollah! I'm not gonna tell ya I won't sell to ya!" (The website does keep a list of retail selections, and I was told on the phone to come by before 2 p.m. to purchase retail.) He shows the couple a stock list, making note of the live lobsters and tells me I can take a look at the facility if I want. I stop to ask the couple what they're looking for, and they tell me conch. "Seventeen dollahs for the little quartah-pound block," Redman tells them. "Very expensive right now." I'm about to ask the couple more about this conch business, but Redman is already striding quickly towards the butchering area.

"Come on, hon!" He's yelling over his shoulder, and I spring into action the way I do when working under a maniacal chef. He means now. So I follow obediently.

An employee is hosing down butchering tables, soapy water washes against my exposed, flip-flopped toes. I feel a rush of shame over my footwear choice.

"We have the freshest fish in town, because you're gonna see it get filleted right in front of you." He brings me into the coolers and shows me impeccably packed and iced whole fish and oysters, and the live lobsters tanks. He brings me into the freezer and points out a box of fish heads headed for a Chinese restaurant.

"We're the only country that wastes," says Redman. "We eat 25 percent of the fish and throw the rest away. Other countries, they're using the bones to make toothpicks. They're using the skins to make pants!" He laughs at himself.

Just then, my flipflop snaps. I'm standing, one-footed, trying to fix it.

"What, did your foot freeze o the flooah??" It did. He's laughing, and he's long-striding back to work.

"Thanks for stopping by, hon!" And he's gone.

Happy Birthday Daniel
Topic: Family

Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes
Oh God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes - lyrics from "Daniel" by Bernie Taupin, music by Elton John


"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the internal battle within, "I spend most of my life deciphering what it means to really be real."

'You're not real?' asked the pest who was only baiting me.

I didn't want to be baited. My answer was simple. I said, "I'm trying."

With that I pasted from Nelson Mandela's Inaugural Address given on May 9, 1994 because when I read it, it makes me think of my brother Dan, who had such a powerful force...but he didn't always know it when he was alive. Today would have been his birthday."

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?"

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God! Your playing small doesn’t serve the world! There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you! We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; It’s in everyone!! And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Who Put the Honey in Your Heart? - Take Two
Topic: Family

"A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him." - Frederick Douglas

"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the inner pest who aims to influence my deeper experiences, "I started my day out with a drive to the cemetery in the town where I grew up. Hubby and I went to see my dad's headstone, which was just put in yesterday beside Jimmy and Danny's stone. Later," I continued, "we visited with my mother."

In spite of Tiger wanting to get a word in edgewise I didn't let him. I wasn't in the mood. I said a silent thank you to my nephew Brian, Jimmy's son, for designing two beautiful headstones, and instead of conversation today, I posted a Take Two. It was first posted on June 8, 2006 for Father's Day from my deleted blog.

~Take Two~
8 June 2006 09:09 EDT | Posted by ben-gal

Who Put the Honey in Your Heart?

"Everybody has a story. Story is the voice of humanity." - Christina Baldwin

"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the pest who aims to squelch my inner recapitulations, "I was very inspired by a new book I'm reading, one by Christina Baldwin entitled Storycatcher. It came at such a perfect time for me, causing me to reflect on the stories of my Life."

Tiger began to comment but I shut him right up and told him determinedly, "I will not be talking to you today."

With that I followed up on my thoughts that this book stirred within; without Tiger's interruption.
Christina Baldwin, an extraordinary writer tells us rightly that we are our stories. A paste from the Storycatcher website superbly illustrates the point. In her powerful new book, Christina Baldwin, one of the visionaries who started the personal writing movement, explores the vital necessity of recreating a sacred common ground for each other's stories. Through story and example, Baldwin shows the power of story to connect life experiences so that we can share them, learn from them, and inspire each other through the medium of a good tale.

I am my story. Mine is about a little girl the second eldest on nine children, the oldest girl child who was laden with responsibilities, either self imposed because I could see that raising such a large clan was an almost insurmountable job, or because my parents unknowingly inflicted this idea onto me. My story is about growing up in this family where love was abound. So too were our share of troubles. To use a worn out, but very apt phrase - "there was never a dull moment."

To properly tell the story of all eleven would take too long and it is not a task I choose to take on. I have though left bits and pieces of our families stories throughout my blog. My sister Colleen has dug deeper to lovingly and more throughly bring many of our family stories to life at her blog and at her website Silver and Gold. Her attempt to share the "voice of humanity" will be well felt by reading her daily entries about the human experience and a book she wrote about our brothers Jim and Dan, who tragically left their story too soon.

In chapter one of Storycatchers Christina Balwin shares a story about her summer pilgrimages to the Sun River valley homestead to visit her grandfather. She writes on page 7: "Story opens up a space between people that is unbound from the reality we are standing in. Our imaginative ability to tell story, our empathetic ability to receive story, can take us anywhere and make it real. In the act of telling a story, we create a world we invite others into. And in the act of listening to story, we accept an invitation into the experiences that are not our own, although they seem to be. Story weaves a sense of familiarity. We are simultaneously listening to another's voice and traveling our won memories. We are looking for connectors, making synaptic leaps linking one variation of human experience to another. You come with me to the glowing light in the tiny farmhouse study, but you also stream through memories of your own childhood. Who put the honey in your heart?"

Christina richly tells the story of her Methodist minister / beehive keeper grandfather who was the one who put the honey in her heart.
Today, being Father's Day, I want to tell the story of the man who put the honey in my heart. My father.
My father, a great storyteller himself, never shied away from teaching his children via the stories of his life. We heard it all. We heard about his own family life, a change-of-life baby number eleven, who was brought up in a big house that his older siblings bought for their parents. He told us about feeling as though he was brought up by six fathers - his six older brothers who kept him in line.
He told us plenty of school stories. He had a lot difficulties with spelling but his favorite teacher Mrs. (?) was able to touch something within him to ignite his love for learning. It was sad to hear that he had to leave high school early to also contribute to his mother and father, but he did not fail to mention that he got his GED years later and was happily accepted to a college in Boston, although he didn't go.

We heard about him joining the army after Pearl Harbor and how all young boys he knew did the same. Sending money home to his mother from his station in Europe during the "war of all wars" was told to us many times. He told us about losing his 28 year old brother John at the Death March Bataan. The stories of his own pain of having to burying bodies in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp did not come to us until years later.

We heard stories about his old girlfriends before he married. We used to peek at all the old love letters that were hidden in the back of the bottom drawer in that old brown bureau in our parent's bedroom. When we got caught, we were gifted with more stories about young love and how Barbara, our mother, stole his heart away and marrying her was "the best thing" he ever did.

We heard about their first home; a two story, "double-decker" purchased after the war in his old stomping grounds. I asked often to hear about the time that he and my mother took their two little babies, Jimmy and me, out on a sled during one of the biggest snow storms. Little Jimmy fell off the back of the sled and it wasn't discovered until the two love birds were a good six feet away. When they looked back Jimmy was happily unaware and buried in the cold cold snow. Infant Kathy was still tucked in securely.

During my teenage years it became obvious to me that my father told his stories to teach. Putting his own self-importance aside, my father would often sit us down (always at the kitchen table) to inform us about his problems with drinking. Using himself as an example he taught us how he used alcohol as a medicine. We were warned that this double edged sword could also become a numbing agent. Together, my father and his children learned about Alcoholics Anonymous. My mother, upon my father's suggestion and to keep her sanity, joined Al-Anon. The oldest kids, joined Ala-teen.

Always when telling a story my father never made himself the hero, although he was that in his families eyes. His struggles were always gifted to us as freely, balanced by his awe for Life that we tenderly learned at my father's kitchen table. His deep and abiding love for the human experience was why he loved us so, and why we loved him back.

Happy Father's Day daddy. You put the honey in my heart.

note: picture taken from my sister's entry, My Dad's Chair, at Looselefnotes.com

100 Things about my First Child
Topic: Family

"Hey Tige," I said to Mr. Tiger, the character within, "I never knew she once served pop-corn to Jerry Garcia when she was working at a movie theater in SF and he was seeing Good Morning Vietnam."

'Who? What?' asked Mr. Tiger his nose wrinkling up.

"My daughter Chrissie, my oldest, has just enumerated 100 things about herself," I told him adding to clarify, "it's another of those meme's going around."

'And I suppose you're going to do one too,' Tiger questioned.

"Well certainly not tonight!" I exclaimed, "I'd need some time to come up with 100 things about myself, but I sure did enjoy reading Chrissie's. Maybe I'll get to it someday."

'Can't wait,' said the pest.

"I bet," I said with a chuckle.

I continued to read down her list. My heart swelled as I read number 41. It sometimes feels as though it were yesterday when Sam was born.

I read all the way down to 81, enjoying it all, when suddenly I had to stop in my tracks. There were tears running down my cheeks as I said, "It almost seems as though it were a dream - a nightmare actually. I'm so glad I still have you honey," I said aloud.

'Gee thanks,' Tiger let out with a smile from ear to ear, "I've been waiting for you to say that for so so long. It's about time you've come to your senses."

I was laughing and crying all at the same time. "I was talking to Chrissie," I told him as I finished reading to the last on her list.

To Chris, I said silently, "And I'm thankful too," tacking on an "I love you" as I scrolled back up to number 60 posting a picture of the project she is currently working on for my granddaughter Sami's bedroom. "Beautiful," I said, meaning both the cross stitch and all the 100 things about my Chrissie.