But for me that was the trigger… An end. The end. The beginning.

A new year is always a time filled with transitions. People resolve themselves to do things that they haven’t been able to make themselves do in the past. They hope that this go around their will is somehow stronger; their goals more achievable.

It’s been an interesting week so far. Two of my friends are in the process of packing up their apartment to start a new journey. A journey that has no clear path set out before them; no notion of destination, just merely an urge to begin walking again. I had lunch with one friend on Monday who lamented that time is running short, that retirement seems closer this year than the last. Then on Tuesday I had lunch with a different friend is contemplating that the their future starts now, they have things they want to get moving on; changing careers, locations, adding to their family.

And then there’s me. As you may recall I’ve become an avid audiobook fan. Not simply because I am too lazy to read (though I still read actual word books even if more and more it is in a digital format), but because it gives me a better way to spend time in the car on the way to work or dropping off the boys at school. I had recently finished up one book (The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett) and I always like to balance fiction with nonfiction and so I decided to start listening to the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. How’s that for a choice about beginnings and ends.

For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a “Last Lecture”, it was a trend started a number of years ago on major college campuses where they challenged faculty members to imagine if they had to give their last lecture, what would it be about? Well as it turns out, Randy Pausch was faced with that actual situation as he had terminal cancer and didn’t have long to live (Randy passed away in 2008). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very upbeat book, but you cannot wade through these types of topics and not at least begin to think about yourself in those situations.

Yes, it’s true that sometimes I can be a pessimist. I currently have no morbid notion of my own end looming overhead (though I live with an awareness that the only moment I am assured is now). Instead I troubled by the thought that I don’t know that I have dreams driving me towards and end.

I don’t think it has anything to do with me being an insomniac, nor do I believe it was that because as a kid I didn’t have dreams of what I would one day do or become. I’m afraid that I’ve just misplaced them.
How sad a thought is that? But I guess it’s really no different than the scene in Hook where Peter Pan(ning) has lost his happy thoughts. I know they are there, somewhere inside, waiting to be rediscovered, reimagined, and most importantly re-dreamed.

I’ve buried them under the everyday, the need to feed my kids, pay the house payment and maybe buy a new iPad 2 in a few months. I’ve hid them away from fears because I do not want to see them get eaten by the scary reality that threatens to take them away.

What if they never happen?
What if I cannot fulfill them?
What if people laugh at me for dreaming them?

I am amazed at how much of our lives and shaped by fear.

We recently finished up the process of hiring a new employee for our department. While I certainly picked up a lot of great one-liners from the various interviews (God I thought they would never end, we had a lot of them), there was one line that stuck a cord with me. One candidate said, “We all know that people fear change. But change is inevitable…” I was stuck by those two thoughts. I realize there is nothing profound in them in and of themselves and that I haven’t strung those two things together a dozen times myself in the past year.

However, I was struck by this rephrase that popped in my head, “We fear the inevitable.” We fear the inevitable. We fear what we cannot change, cannot stop, or alter in any way. I have often said that the only thing we can control in this life is how we react. If we fear what cannot be changed and we can only control our actions then ultimately we can only control the way in which we react to something that we know is coming.

But honestly, how cool is that? Most people are live in fear that they don’t know what is going to happen, yet on the grand scheme of things that simply isn’t true. We know what is going to happen, maybe not how, maybe not when, but it will, it’s certain, foregone. We have an opportunity to be prepared to respond to the thing that we are afraid of in advanced of its happening.

Everything changes. Everything.

Things end. Jobs end. Relationships and even life itself ends. You cannot avoid that. It’s inevitable, but it doesn’t need to be feared, simply prepared for.

You cannot change plans unless you have them.

Make them.

Make plans for today, for tomorrow and for forever even if it never comes. Let those plans be built upon the dreams you had when you were old enough to imagine the world as it should be… as it could be. Dream beyond your fears. Live for the end. Be the beginning.

So here’s to 2011.

It’s not that I’m not looking mind you, I’m just not sharing my results along the way.

I haven’t had my own words lately, I’ve been finding them in pictures and places and in others. I’ve been trying to see myself through the eyes of others and of those who matter most to me.

I have good intensions, but writing things of importance has come more difficult over the past year. It’s easing up a bit. I have things popping their heads up on the inside and one or two of them might actually make their way all the way to the top. We’ll see but no promises.

None the less, please do remember that October is national Breast Cancer Awareness month. For my wife, my mother, my sisters and my friends, please, take care of yourself and make sure you are being checked often.

For a lot of you, you already know this because you’ve asked my why haven’t I written anything about it. It isn’t that I have written about it, I just haven’t shared anything that I’ve written. There are actually several reasons for this. The first was because the following week at the University (August 22 we were holding a memorial service for Mélaine and I wasn’t sure what I was going to say or share, so I didn’t want to have that be read, and then heard again at the service. This week Keith asked if I could send him what I said at the service and a few other things and I didn’t want to post those here until he had a chance to use what he needed for the service in the UK.

Plus to be quite honest, it was still a little raw for me (still is) and with work being what it is I haven’t had a chance to just sit down and process all of the emotion that is bottled up somewhere. So what that means is that next week in the desert outside of Las Vegas while Amber and I are taking pictures (and she’s bugging me to let her have a turn using the real camera), I’m sure I’ll finally let it all out and then she’ll feel bad, and yeah, I’ll get to keep the camera the whole time (not that I’m plotting). I’m working my way through that, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’m almost finished with another “Little Girl” story (you’ve read the first peice as ‘Sunshine and the Storm Cloud [for lack of a better title]). This one was inspired by Mélaine and is called ‘Moving’, so I’ll share that here shortly once its more polished (I typically run things by Michelle and then to someone like Andrea for proof reading – Michelle is my editor of choice as she doesn’t mind ripping apart what I’ve written… but mostly because she more importantly understands what I meant to write even if I’ve forgotten entire words, phrases or thought patterns – she’s awesome like that.

I’ve also written a letter from Ed (aka Edward Duckworth, aka Evil Red Duck of EvilRedDuck.com) to Mélaine that I might share as well… it was mostly for smiles.

All that having been said, one of the things we did do for the memorial (besides plant an Oak tree in Mélaine’s honor) was collect letters written to her to be given to Keith and Jay. This is the letter I wrote.

Dear Mélaine,

Dude… honestly? For real? Like what the hell man? I cannot believe that you just up and fled this ball of muck and left the rest of us behind or rather to quote Billy:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make.

I’m going to miss you. I don’t know how else to say it.

I can still recall your interview for the University and how masterfully you flubbed it and the technical demonstration part of the show. But you did it with such grace and poise, that I knew you were the right person for the job. It’s never a matter of knowledge in life but how you handle yourself when life is hard and the water is set to boil. If you can master yourself during those times in life, then the rest is cake.

It is strange to think that I’ve only “known” you for a year. Last week was one year since we went to Madison together. I can still recall sitting there as we prepared ourselves to head out saying, “Listen, I don’t do shallow very well. I’m not good at making small talk, chatting about nonsense and things that are of unimportance. If I’m going to invest time into someone, then it’s going to be something of meaning or I’d rather not do it. So you’ve got two choices, I have an 80gig iPod here filled with a variety of music and we can certainly listen to that the entire time, or we can chat, completely up to you.

And you choose chat. And so we did.

I think we started with how you viewed politics in America verses that in Europe. We talked of jobs past; of the homeless guy in the subway that you used to bring a sandwich to on your way to work at the jewelry shop; life growing up, of your brother and your relationships with your parents. And even though I gave you the caveat of not answering any question I ask (because you know I can pry in my attempt to understand the person), you answered, and I believe honestly.

We talked of what led you to Germany and of meeting Keith. How the things you loved the most about him were the very things that drove you nuts, but they were what you needed most. We talked about what you wanted out of life, favorite songs, music to listen to when you were happy and depressed.

And then we began the whole process again for the 6 and half hour ride home. I still laugh every time I hear that line from the song in Juno, “I had a dream that I had to drive to Madison to deliver a painting for some silly reason, I took a wrong turn and ended up in Michigan.” I’d like to blame it on construction, mislabeled signs, but I know that we were so engrossed in a discussion about Imogen Heap, Macs, Music and a slew of other things that we were both a little shocked to find ourselves in Michigan and needing to find a route that cut across the state. I’d still argue that we should have just taken the extra 20 minutes to head into Ohio since at that point we had already been in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan that day. Oh well, maybe another trip.

I remember giving my arm chair psychoanalysis of you as we drove. Laying all your secrets bare, letting you know why I thought you did the things that you did, why you lived behind a façade, and why you worked as hard as you did. How you looked at me with a little bit of shock as I figured things out and it was at that moment that I got “you” and I realized what a cool person you were.

Michelle and I went back to the pub and had dinner with Nathan. We got seated at the same table you and I did when we (and by we, I mean you) first discovered the place. It was hard to be there knowing that states away (in Ohio), you were dying.

I know that we talked several times on the phone in the last month and that we never said “goodbye”, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What would we say? I had no undying love to confess. I always told you what I thought of you and how much I appreciated the work that you did. No regrets to share. It wasn’t that I’d left things unsaid, but it still feels that way.

There are always more words. That’s one of the things I think I most enjoyed about you. I loved that we could sit down to do a podcast, a presentation, lecture video and we just made it up together on the spot and it worked as if we had scripted the whole thing before hand.

Writing was the thread I think that bond it all together; our shared joy in writing, phrasing and exploring new voices. Thank you for your kind and honest words that you always offered as we shared pieces back and forth.

Thank you for letting me make you laugh, and for those few times when you showed me your true laughter, not the one that came so quick in most situations, but the one that welled up from inside. The first time I saw it was when I was walking past your office and you were alone and watching ‘DIET the dancing elves’ and you thought no one was around.

Thank you for letting me make you cry, for letting me scale the wall to see the girl behind the statue of professionalism.

Thank you for being a nerd…. and geek, a closet sci-fi Trekie, and a dear friend.

J’étais heureux de vous connaître, fier d’être votre collègue et surtout, honoré pour s’appeler le votre ami. – I am pleased to know you, proud to be your co-worker and above all, honored to be called your friend.

You were a pretty neat chick, and we’ll always have Paris, well at least the garage [pronounced gair-age].

Dude, you better have heaven all mapped out by the time I get there, I don’t want to waste time finding all the cool stuff.

As Always,
Bob

So there you go, a little Thursday afternoon catharsis (which I totally didn’t have to Google to spell correctly, you should be proud, public education does work).

Team DIET

So while she’s been off doing her thing, I took the time and edited the photos from this past week. Rather than post them all here, I’ve gone ahead and dumped them from Lightroom into a flash slide show. Enjoy. (or not).

Click here or the image below to enjoy the show.

Enjoy. (Oh, since I haven’t had time to Photoshop these [though I did use Lightroom to process the RAW images], some still need to be color corrected and straightened… so please forgive the mess).

“Family Man” from Trevor Little on Vimeo.

Family Man
Andrew Peterson

I am a family man
I traded in my mustang for a minivan
This is not what I was headed for when I began
This was not my plan
I am a family man

But everything I had to lose
Came back a thousand times in you
And you fill me up with love
Fill me up with love
And you help me stand
’cause I am a family man

And life is good
That’s something I always knew
But I just never understood
If you’d asked me then you know I’d say I never would
Settle down in a neighborhood
I never thought I could

But I don’t remember anymore
Who I even was before
You filled me up with love
Filled me up with love
And you help me stand

So come on with the thunder clouds
Let the cold wind rail against us, let the rain come down
We can build a roof above us with the love we’ve found
We can stand our ground
So let the rain come down

Because love binds up what breaks in two
So keep my heart so close to you
And I’ll fill you up with love
Fill you up with love
And I’ll help you stand
‘Cause I am a family man

I’m saving my vacation time
For Disneyland
This is not what I was headed for when I began
This was not my plan
It’s so much better than

Details in the Fabric
Jason Mraz
(feat. James Morrison)

Calm down
Deep breaths
And get yourself dressed instead
Of running around
And pulling all your threads saying
Breaking yourself up

If it’s a broken part, replace it
But, if it’s a broken heart then brace it
If it’s a broken heart then face it

And hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
Hold your own
Know your own name
And go your own way

And everything will be fine
Everything will be fine
Mmmhmm

Hang on
Help is on the way
Stay strong
I’m doing everything

Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way

And everything, everything will be fine
Everything

Are the details in the fabric
Are the things that make you panic
Are your thoughts results of static cling?

Are the things that make you blow
Hell, no reason, go on and scream
If you’re shocked it’s just the fault
Of faulty manufacturing.

Yeah everything will be fine
Everything in no time at all
Everything

Hold your own
And know your name
And go your own way

Are the details in the fabric (Hold your own, know your name)
Are the things that make you panic
Are your thoughts results of static cling? (Go your own way)

Are the details in the fabric (Hold your own, know your name)
Are the things that make you panic (Go your own way)
Is it Mother Nature’s sewing machine?

Are the things that make you blow (Hold your own, know your name)
Hell no reason go on and scream
If you’re shocked it’s just the fault (Go your own way)
Of faulty manufacturing

Everything will be fine
Everything in no time at all
Hearts will hold

Many of you may be wondering about a post I wrote earlier last week. I wrote about a dear friend of mine who was fighting cancer. Doctors reported that she wouldn’t make it through the night. Her breathing had dropped down to 2 or 3 breaths per minute, sometimes less; she’ll most likely never wake up again.

That’s a heavy place to be in; in that moment, waiting. Few, if any, places are darker. And so, what do you do? What do you do when you are powerless, and hopeless, and lost?

And so we prayed. As individuals, we prayed. As a community, we prayed. As fellow believers for a stranger we’d never met we prayed.

And when the praying was done. We waited.

Several of us discussed prayer. Do our words have an effect on the outcome or merely ourselves? Does praying make a difference or is it merely happenstance that the thing we prayed for comes about? That day I prayed for one thing, that my friend would have the opportunity to speak to his wife again (as he had missed the small window where she was awake the day before), that he would get to say the things he needed to say.

I held my breath and waited, but I dared not hope. I was reminded of a quote from the Shawshank Redemption, “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

Miracle is such a funny word. We toss it around at everything and we never really wrestle with what it means. It’s kinda like “love”. I love’s me the pizza. I love you mom. It becomes watered down and powerless.

My friend buzzed through on Skype the following evening and I waited for the bad news that I had been expecting all day. I braced myself. I hardened my emotions.

But the shoe never fell.

Instead I was greeted by, “Well, she’s still with us. She woke up today and I got talk with her.”

Was that a miracle? I don’t know. But what I had asked God for happened and the unexpected took place. Despite all of that, I dared not hope for more. It was enough that my buddy got to talk to his wife one last time and I could tell that he was more at peace than the night before.

So again I waited and I held my breath.

Friday afternoon my phone rang and it was my buddy’s number. Once again my heart sank and I prepared myself for what I knew was coming.

But it wasn’t him. It was her. There was shock. There was joy. And there was terror.

I fancy myself a bit of a wordsmith. Most of the time I can easily and quickly command language, but I was caught like a cat up to no good. I had asked myself earlier if I wanted this conversation, if I wanted my chance to say good bye. See, I don’t believe in ‘good bye’, not really. I don’t believe that this life is all there is to us a people, that there is an existence that happens beyond this world and that even if someone sheds this broken flesh, that shortly I will run into them again in another place and another time.

Yet here I was, on the phone. The first thing I noticed is that my iPhone’s battery was at 20% so I quickly plugged it into my MacBook so that we weren’t cut off again. And then we began to talk.

We laughed.

We joked.

She told me about her progress. How yesterday she spent more time awake and that she ate a little food. That today she spent more time awake and ate even more food.

We complained about work.

We talked about Batman.

And then we said good bye.

The last thing she said to me was, “I’ll talk to you again soon.”

I thought a lot about Shawshank Redemption this weekend. I thought about the theme of hope. At the end of the movie, Red is off to Mexico so see Andy, and he closes the film with this quote:

“I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”

“I’ll talk to you again soon.”

Do you know what the funny thing is? I believe her. She’s stubborn like that.

Don’t miss understand. I’m still aware of the reality of things. I am aware that the doctors aren’t looking at treatment options, that they are focusing on pain management. But she hasn’t given up hope, she and her husband are working at different options. They’re fighting and hoping; that’s really the key I realized. You can’t let that hope go.

There’s another quote from Andy in that movie, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing, and no good thing ever dies.”

I hope.

So since I was limited with what I had to work with, below is my original and then my finished products. Still a little rough, but meh, it’s a start.

Colors by Kira Willey

I am green today, I chirp with joy like a cricket song,
I am grey today, gloomy and damp like a morning fog,
I am orange today, loud and messy like finger paint on the wall
I am red today, hopping mad like a playground ball
I am black today, strong and tall a great big bear
I am purple today, bright and happy like a butterfly in the air

I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world are in me

I am yellow today, I shine my light out like the sun
I am White today, soft and quiet like new snow
I am Blue today, calm as glass and cool like the sea

I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world
I’m a rainbow today, all the colors of the world are in me
All the colors of the world are in me.

Link to the song (since you can’t embed it) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur5AYncDDE0

There are a few things in this world that I can do; but one of the things that I can’t do is shallow. I don’t do shallow very well at all. I can’t do fake table conversation. I can’t pretend that I don’t have ideas and opinions (though I’ve been known to hold my tongue a time or two). That doesn’t mean that I can’t deal with it, I simply disconnect or remove myself from situations. When I sit down to talk to people, it is with the full intent of investing myself in them and their struggles; that I won’t settle for surface stuff. As a result I choose my friends very carefully. The people I choose to involve in my life are sparse, but they’re meaningful.

They are good people (yes Brain, that includes you too). People who care about others and sacrifice for those around them. They are people whom I admire. I try to learn from them and in return avail every resource I have to serve in their causes. They are generous, they are thoughtful, they are people truly worth knowing.

Today however, one of my friends is dying and I am helpless to stop it.

I’m broken hearted; I’m pissed off and there isn’t a thing I can fix or do to help. I’m 34 for years old, my friends aren’t supposed to be dying. She’s 31, a wife, a mother of a 4 year old, and the doctors report that sometime in the next 24 hours she will most likely pass away. She’ll never wake up again and that just sucks.

The last time we spoke on the phone just a few days ago, our conversation was cut short because the battery in her cell phone ran out of juice.

That’s what it feels like; like we had just gotten into the middle of a great talk and abruptly it was cut off. She was my partner in crime at work; we plotted the overthrow of PC domination; we taught a class together. We started SlanderousTongue.com as a way to spur each other to write more often.

Just last September she, Amber, Michelle, and I all went to Las Vegas. In February they started to know that something was wrong. Despite two bone marrow tests and a slew of blood work they couldn’t figure out was was wrong with her. In April she was diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoma; July 7th she finally turned on her ‘Out of Office’ notice at work; last week she was supposed to have a bone marrow transplant and now tomorrow most likely she will no longer be here with us and frankly I think it’s a pretty shitty deal (pardon my French).

I hate stuff like this.

I hate that we live in a broken world. I hate that tomorrow her husband (who is a good friend of mine) will be without a help mate. I hate that her son will grow up without a mom. I hate that bad things happen to good people. I hate that reality trumped my hope.

I hurt for them and I hurt for me. I hurt for all the hurt that is in the world and the seeming unfairness of it all.

I am reminded that no matter how long your life is, that it is simply too short. That somethings are more important. I am reminded that at any moment our ticket can be cashed and we have to be ready for what is next. That someone will have to clean up when I am gone. To quote my friend Mark (who was indeed quoting someone else), that ‘getting old is not for the faint of heart’.

Don’t get me wrong; I live in a faith based world view. I know that God is in control; I know that He has a more perfect will that that I don’t understand. I know that it’s not my will be done, but His. It’s just sometimes I wish that God would realign His will to mine.

Yesterday I had to shave off my beard. Yeah, I know weird right (that’s part of the reason why I didn’t go to work for 2 days, I would have hated to freak out the folks at work). I look like I’m 15 without my facial scrub, like some kid too young to be leading a team at a University and certainly too young to be teaching a Grad class or to have a two boys 10 & 12.

Plus my Michelle hates it. A lot. I mean like wouldn’t even look at me hates it.

See every couple of years I get these dry patches of skin that I can’t get to because of the thick foliage that occupies a large portion of the surface area of my face. So off it goes. Apply some cream for a day or two and bingo, good for another 3 or 4 years.

But here’s the really interesting part that. For the first time in about 4 years, my face was hair free. I mean totally. Then the freakiest thing happened; the AC kicked in. Shocking i know, but it totally freaked me. I felt a breeze. I mean actual air moving across the sensation of my skin. It was an on sensation because I was only keenly aware of it around my mouth and along my jawline. These pulsing waves of cool air and I was amazed.

It didn’t end there, I had the day off yesterday and I went to take a nap (I know, that’s how you know when you are getting old). My wife had left a T-shirt on the couch and I went to smell it, and as I did it brushed again across my face. WHOLLY COW! The tactile nature of that soft cotton was fascinating. Then I became a man possessed. I picked up Flash (one of our cats) and rubbed my chin on his head (as he is so keen to do to me), I splashed water on my face both hot and cold anything I could get my chin on I experienced all the new (or rather forgotten) textures. My mind was open to a whole knew world.

Okay, I admit, that last part was more serialized than reality, but you start to get the point. Most of you cannot relate to what that experience is like. You are so used to taking in those experiences that you’ve become accustomed to them. They have no newness to them, they are common place, they are every day. You take that base line knowledge for granted.

As an educator, I sometimes have the tendency to do the same thing. For those of us in the technology field it’s even worse.

Technology is my every day experience. I live it, breathe it, wallow in it in all areas of my life. From my computers at work, to my computers at home. Digital this, can HD that. TVs, personal media players, iPhones, Macs and PCs. I take it for granted; it just makes sense to. I forget that for some this is a whole new world.

That was made painfully aware a few weeks ago when I was asked to do some computer training for our Operations staffers as they are moving online with their forms and their communications. One of the classes that I offered was basic computer skills. When I say basic, I mean basic. I began with an assumption that these were people who were at least familiar with what a computer was. You know what they say about assumptions – they make an ass out of you and umption. I had to go back to the beginning, the very beginning and teach people basic keyboard. How to make capital letters, mouse skills. The difference between clicking, double clicking and left and right clicking.

Those frustrations aside tough, I had forgotten how wondrous computers and technology can be to those who have never experience their magic; that point when going to someplace like Google was new, and the idea that you could type in words and you could find out everything you were looking for them.

Technology – it’s a cool thing. Like the air on my naked face. Wow, do I look like a baby.

Well some stupid wench today was too busy on her cell phone to see that Michelle had been stopped waiting for two cars to pass before she could turn into the University (we car pool) and without breaking, she slammed into the back of the Accord.

While the bumper split in the center and popped from the frame on the left hand side, we drove it home. The ditz in the Doge, not so lucky – she had to have her bleeding wreck hauled off in the wrecker. On the plus side, no major injuries. On the downside, now we have to get it repaired (we have $200 left on the loan… I hate stupid people).

A few months back I wrote a short story for SlanderousTongue.com and shared it with her as a source of encouragement when the world seems gray. So as I sit here looking out at the pouring rain and praying for her upcoming procedure, I thought I would share that small snippet of her story that so that you might include her in your prayers and positive thoughts. In exchange, I’ll share a little bit of my encouragement with you in hopes that you might find something in there for yourself as well.

It has a title that still needs work, and this is simply a rough draft, but enjoy none the less.

The sky outside was a listless grey… and wet; drenched in fact. It was as if the entire whole of the world’s rooftop were drowning in water. That coalesced moisture, cold and overflowing, was spilling down onto the upturned ground saturating it like a soiled dish cloth.

“What a horrible, muddy, grey, dreary, cheerless,” the girl stopped a moment to wring her brain out for another slew of synonyms, “blah, depressing, humdrum day.” She tried to smile at her clear mastery of “the adjective,” but little could bring happiness on a day such as today.

Though, upon closer consideration, it was really more than just today that was causing her such distress. A single day of sunless mirth could be endured; two or three could be overcome with some effort, but an entire week? Surely in the whole history of the world, no one had ever had to suffer through seven long melancholy bleak days like she had. She didn’t wish to alarm anyone, but she was beginning to fear that the color would be stolen from the earth for forever.

In the back of her mind she had begun to suspect that some thief had crept to the top of the highest mountain and waited for the sun to pass overhead and when it did, he (she knew it was a boy because boys were, by their very natures, bad and mischievous) jumped up with a great sack and caught the sun before it even knew what was happening. With the sun out of the way, he took out a giant straw, plunked it right into the great soda-popped sky and started sucking away all the color.

But it wasn’t just from the world that he was stealing the color, it was from her face too. She could see it; she could feel it. Every day she went to the mirror and looked upon her face, and each day the sunshine of her hair, the glow of her eyes and the sparkle of her teeth started to fade away. The corners of her mouth started to fall too, that’s how powerful the suction was.

Today she had decided to fight the thief by standing on her head and looking back into the mirror so that she could see her face smile once again (she couldn’t remember what a smile looked like), and mother said “her knickers were showing” and that “she should sit like a lady” and “to stop that right away before all the blood rushed to her head and she got dizzy” (which it did, and she had). But mother didn’t understand. The sun was gone, the world was flooding (she was worried that the world was flooding too), and someone was stealing all the color and no one seemed to be doing anything about it.

The little girl sat cross-legged on the floor of her room watching the puddle in the back yard achieve lake status. She couldn’t take it anymore. Something simply had to be done. She decided that she had to tell Mother. Mothers may be the thorn in the sides of little girls, but they get things done; mothers have super secret powers. This determined decision had brought her to her feet and she had screwed upon her face the most serious and stern look that she could muster for one of her age. She had folded her arms across the front of her dress and straddled the floor boards as if bracing herself for a mighty wind to come and try to carry her away (the wind was a boy too, why else would it mess up her hair, kick dirt into her eyes and try to peek under her skirt?).

It was at that very moment, with that very face, that those very arms crossed upon that very dress, and in that very stance that mother happened past her bedroom door.

“Well, don’t you have quite the little storm cloud brewing over your head,” mother intoned, carrying a basket of laundry down the hall.

And it was at those words tossed like a smelly sock into the corner of an already messy room that her world began to tumble. The little girl tumbled with them right onto her bed. She was stunned. Did she really just hear her mother say what it was that she thought that she had said? “Quite the little storm cloud brewing over your head,” those were the words weren’t they?

They couldn’t possibly be.

No, surely not truly. She must be mistaken. Yes, that was it, perhaps her mother had misspoke.

But they still rang like the lunch bell in the canopy of her head. “Quite the little storm cloud”.

Suddenly it all made sense now and the room began to twirl with the reality of her discovery. What was it that daddy always called her? How did he put it when he returned from the day and sat her down upon his lap and held her close, so close that she could smell the breeze and heat in his shirt?

“How is my little sunshine today?”

And there it was, the answer to the entire mystery. Some snot nose boy hadn’t found a way to snag the sun and steal the color (no boy could be that smart, that brave, or that clever). The key was her and the secret of her understanding had shattered all that she thought she knew to be true.

Simply put, that unbeknownst to her, she was the sun. The world was grey, cold and empty because she was covered by a storm cloud, and if she could not find a way to rid herself of this harbinger of doom, all could be lost. The room began to spin about once more. And on that last and final spin she at long last saw her nemesis, the little storm cloud.

It was a boil of melancholy: dark greys, light greys, and a twizel of medium greys. Tiny sparks of electricity and heat erupted from all sides of the dancing little mass. One of the fingers of light reached out and touched the ends of her hair and caused them to stand upright like the children in her Sunday School class waiting to be dismissed. Shortly thereafter the rain began to fall.

The little storm cloud hovered above the girl’s head and dumped pails of water upon her in steady gushes. Like standing in the shower when you first turn the handles, the cold brought a wave of astonished disbelief. More than anything though, the little girl was appalled at the audacity of the storm cloud to treat her in such a matter. However the shock quickly passed as she noticed the pooling water that started to gather about her pink painted toes.

“Oh no,” thought the little girl, “mother will work herself into a lather over this mess.” So she grabbed the remains from her exploded drawers and closet that were cast about her room and attempted to mop up the now raging river that she found herself in the middle of. Yet try as she might, the water would not and could not be cleaned up. Despair seemed to open it’s mighty maw and began to encircle her with it’s toothy teeth. And then she began to cry.

She really could not help herself. She had tried to fight back the salty rivulets that had begun to mix with the cold soggy drops of rain that pa-looped from the ends of her hair, but they came on none the less. Once the logjam of her resistance had given way, they flowed more readily and deeply, her chest dancing up and down of it’s own accord. For many moments she sat like Jonah inside the belly of sorrow and gave into her defeat.

There is a darkness that lives in that hole inside the stomach of despair that can be found in no other place in the world. All the candles in all the windows cannot pierce the hide of that beast. There is but one fire that can light the way up from that pit and it is the flames of wrath. It is that blaze that wells from inside our guts and breaks forth on it’s own legs to rampage around. If there is one thing that little girls are especially skilled at, it is anger and so the little girl got mad.

“Just like a boy,” the little girl thought. For the storm cloud too must be a boy. Surely. Who else would make a mess like this and leave it for someone else to clean up? Who, but a boy, would allow a little girl to cry like that and not come to her aid? Well, she for one was not about to be beaten by a boy. Already at school she proved that she was faster than the boys, smarter than the boys, and her dresses were certainly prettier than the stupid short pants and stained t-shirts they always wore.

The little girl had cataloged in her mind a list of effective ways to rid oneself of a boy. She thought of Lucy and how little Bobby Henry had pulled on her hair trying to get her attention. She had spun around with such a wonderful flourish and smacked him soundly on his goofily grinning cheek. Shawack! What a wonderful sound it had made. He had fled in terror and some of the other boys had whispered that Lucy had made him cry. With that in mind her first course of action must be swift and sound if she was to drive away this cloud and save the world.

With a mighty leap driven with the power that only the legs of a little girl could produce, she took a giant swing at the storm cloud, hoping that the ferocity of her attack would send the little cumulus fleeing. Her initial efforts did not produce the desired effect so she rained her own storm of fists down upon the cloud screaming with the fury of a spring tempest. A hurricane of blows rose and fell; a rushing torrent of hate filled words of the clouds stupidity, ignorance, and get-away-from-me’s buffeted the storm on all sides. All the little girl achieved with a small bolt of lightning returning her once again to the floor in stunned confusion.

She mentally leafed through her list of tactics. Ah, this one always worked on daddy. What is a daddy other than a little boy all grown up (how mother could stand living with a boy was beyond her capacity to fathom – once she had asked mother that very question and mother had told her that when she was older she would understand, but if getting older meant understanding boys, then she never wanted to get older)?

So with much effort the little girl folded her water slicked arms across her damp dress and shoved her lower lip out farther than any little girl in all of living memory had pushed it out. She began to pout. Pouting always worked on daddy. After a few moments of this certainly the little storm cloud would give into all of her demands and leave the world for good.

But the little storm cloud did not leave. It just continued to linger above her head and pour its miserable water all over her.

“Hrumph!” said the little girl.

“Hrumph!” said the little storm cloud.

“Go away! I hate you!” the little girl shouted.

But the little storm cloud just stormed, and thundered, and rained.

“This is impossible (just like boys),” thought the little girl. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve hit it. I’ve told it to go away. I’ve pouted and still the little storm cloud won’t go away. If I don’t think of something soon, the world will be lost.” The little girl was quickly running out of ways to deal with a pestering boy (violence, the tantrum, and the pout were the primary weapons of the little girl – later on she would learn the wink, the smile, the flirt, and feigned helplessness, but for now, those would have to wait). There was one method that she had considered, but hadn’t had the chance to field test it to know if it was effective.

“Oh just ignore him,” mother had said at church. Could ignoring really work? Were boys really so stupid that if you just pretended that they weren’t really there that they would simply go away? The little girl thought that they would just try all the harder to get your attention, but perhaps mother knew best. She was quickly finding herself with few other avenues to explore. So the little girl pretended that the storm cloud wasn’t there and did her best to focus on ignoring him.

And just like that the little storm cloud vanished…

…well that is until the rain drops fell into her eyes, the sparks messed up her hair again, and the puddles soaked her dress. It was in that very moment, in that very puddle, under that very storm cloud that the little girl snapped.

She stomped. She cried. She flailed. She fell into a heap on the floor. She resigned herself to a world of grey. She prayed (but God must not have heard her over the storm). She hollered at the top of her lungs, “GO AWAY! I HATE YOU!”

But the little storm cloud did not go away and the little girl had run out of options. Run out of options that is, save one. The little girl ran.

With the feet of youth she fled her room. Perhaps if she could just outrun the little storm cloud she could loose him. She could hide and it would never find her and the world would be all right once again. Down the hall, into the living room, and out the front door into the grey sea. And still she ran, her lungs blazing with heat, her cheeks steaming, her ears thump, thump, thumping.

And with a great sur-plop, the little girl slipped,

and fell,

and tumbled,

and crashed into the muddy ground.

The world was quiet. Perhaps, just perhaps she had done it at last.

With a “shalucky” pull she lifted her face from the mushy ground and splashed onto her back.

The little storm cloud washed the mud from her eyes. It had found her. She had lost. The world had lost. The little storm cloud had won and the world was doomed to forever grey.

She struggled and wrestled herself to her feet. Mother was most positively going to kill her now. As the little girl pulled tigs and leaves from her tangled locks she looked down at her once white – now brown dress. It was wet, torn and covered with more dirt than a sow might collect on a good day. Her life was over.

But it was in that very moment, in that very storm, in that very once white – now brown dress, on that very spot that she looked down and saw the angel that she had made in the mud. And as she looked up, past the storm cloud and into the greater greyer sky, she laughed.

And then she laughed some more.

And then she laughed, and laughed, and laughed still more. She laughed so hard that her knees gave away and once again she found herself on the muddy mucky earth. But this time it didn’t matter. She wallowed, she ran, she dove, she slid, she splashed, and still she laughed. She made pies, she danced, she cried, and hugged the rain as it washed over it. But more than that she glowed. She soared, she shown.

When the laughter finally let her go, she looked about and noticed that the storm cloud was gone, and that the sky wasn’t quite so grey any more. In fact, yes, it was, the sky was growing blue. Blue. Color! The little girl ran back towards the house to find mother standing on the porch and little girl skidded to a halt. She had forgotten about her hair. She had forgotten about her dress. She had forgotten about the mess inside the house. She braced for her mother’s harsh words, and the world felt a little colder, a little greyer, and a little darker.

Mother looked at her sternly. Her hands placed her hips. The little girls breath caught. And then mother laughed and held open her arms and the little girl rushed into them and mother held her close, so close that she could smell the clean laundry and the love.

“Well, aren’t you my little muddy little sunbeam.” And she was.

The little girl knew in that one hug that the world was going to be okay, and that no matter what little storm clouds brewed about her heard and tried to steal away the color and the warmth, that sunshine was always right there, just inside her. All she had to do was shine. And so she did.

Let’s see… oh, I down sized the Pilot and I’m the owner (I don’t know if I am a proud owner yet, I am still working on it) of an ’09 Toyota Matrix. It’s a cute little car, and because we are buying and not leasing I was able to go out and add an Apple sticker to the back window, so that was cool. The Matrix isn’t as roomy as the Pilot, nor as posh, but heck, I save nearly $100 a month on payments and we haven’t even gotten into gas yet. The cool thing is that because the tank is smaller, even if I still use a tank of gas a month, I am saving 5 gallons a fill; which at $4 a gallon that’s $20 bucks a week or $80 dollars a month. So not a bad savings too (oh, plus cheaper insurance since its not an SUV). While it’s still growing on me (as I lament my loss of my spoiledness), I’m totally digging the savings.

What else? OH, Michelle and I went to Detroit to see Jason Mraz and Matt Nathanson at the Fillmore, so that was cool. We stayed at the Renaissance Center and got to watch the fireworks at Comerica Park from our window which was totally sweet. The night of the concert was the same night as the Tigers won 19-3 and the Red Wings won game one of the Stanley Cup play offs 4-0; a great night to be in Motown.

We also got to stop by the day before and spend an afternoon with Tom, so that was great as we got to hang out and have Jersey Giant subs… which mmmmm… those are good.

Work has been CRAZY busy. One of our team members is down with some health issues and so I’ve been standing in her heels for a while (man, those a HUGE heels) and I’ve been doing lots of training. One of the cool (and frustrating things) is that we started a training program for our folks in operations and housekeeping on using the computer, accessing email, and what have you. I had forgotten what a foreign thing a computer can be to someone who doesn’t use it in their daily life. Things like, this is how you make a capital letter. This is how you use a mouse. This is what a left button does, this is what a right button does. This, this is the internet you’ve heard so much about. Almost all of them are moving along nicely, we still have a few that are challenged, but they haven’t given up which is a great thing.

I will have to say however, that the best part about the whole experience is that I am getting to meet some interesting people. These guys and gals quietly go about their jobs making sure that the university keeps humming and they are the most interesting people. The guy from Macedonia, the electrician who is a closest novelist and the list goes on. Very cool people. I’ve been blessed in just getting to know them.

Dafyd turned 12. That’s a good thing, but despite having the conversation again, no, he still isn’t old enough to play Halo.

I as quietly as possible got another year old. In fact I spent my birthday training the folks in operations.

I made it to a few game nights, a nice gathering with the Rothrocks, and afternoon or two with the Shermans, so all in all a busy month, but one filled with many rewards (and fewer complaints).

So there you have. See, you haven’t missed too much.

Best Wishes,
Bob

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I would save almost… almost $22 over the 15 weeks… wow, I mean… heck, screw some bridge in Wisconson, I could totally get some Little Caesar’s Pizza with that kind of savings!