• A Florida Winter.

    “Hey Beth, do you want to go outside and feel how cold it is this morning”, daddy asked at 8 a.m. this morning. “Yeah!!”, Beth replied enthusiastically. “O.K., I’ll pick you up and carry you since you don’t have any shoes on.”

    They go just out side the door and rush back inside without hesitation.

    “Daddy, what temperature is it in here?” asked Beth. Daddy replied, “well, its about 70 degrees in here.”
    “And what temperature is it out there?” asked Beth. Daddy replied, “its 40 degrees out there now.”
    “Ooo, that’s a lot of cold daddy.”

  • Child Takes Initiative, “Cleans” Bathroom.

    DUNEDIN – Using only the objects available to her: a toilet (the sink was too high to reach) and the brush beside it; Elizabeth Kauffman did her best to clean her parents bathroom early this evening. “I put the brush in the water and I put the water there and there and there and there and there” said Elizabeth, describing the scene to her father. Those on the scene describe the bathroom as “wet.” “You wouldn’t believe how much water there is in a toilet”, said Beth’s father, arriving late on the scene. “There was water everywhere. . .and there was still some in the toilet. . .!@#$%^& unbelievable!”

    The child’s mother was reportedly working this evening and was not available for comment.

  • Remembering my grandmother.

    These last several years, I had the impression that my grandmother was not a happy person. Perhaps I am not the best person here today to make this assessment, but despite being separated by geography and circumstances, we did speak on the phone occasionally. When we did, she invariably mentioned that most of her loved ones and friends were long gone.

    I was listening to National Public Radio the other day and I heard a piece which was relevant for today. An older woman was relating a story she heard from a friend who was a midwife. This friend was delivering a baby whose amniotic sack had not yet broken. This friend claimed that, for a brief moment, she was able to see the baby’s face through the dilated birth canal, and it was an amazing sight – the baby’s head not yet deformed by the trauma of child birth. Eventually, the sack was broken and the baby was born soon thereafter. The woman telling this story mused about how she thought that death may be much like child birth: a long, drawn out struggle of a journey, climaxed by a birth into a new reality. She then wondered if sometimes people experience something similar to that baby being born – that they perhaps catch glimpses of friends, offering a helping hand on their final journey to heaven from life on Earth.

    I don’t know if I quite believe the story about that baby; but I do pray that my grandmother was met by those that loved her and completed the journey before her; and that at long last, she is with them now.

    My heart aches for the things I feel I could have done, and for opportunities that sadly can no longer come.