It happened last night. I was sleeping, tucked up next to you in the chilly air. A cleansing breeze was blowing in the window, blowing out the heat, and it seems to me, blowing out the oppression of worry and strife.

The moonlight streamed in, parting the night with a silvery blade of clarity. The lace curtains breathed with the wind,.............puffing out, then pulling back. That glowing yet subtle light fell across your sleeping face, and I laid there, turned to you, watching you sleep.

You slept the sleep of the young............your lips slightly parted and your brow unfurrowed. You had your hand overhead and your fingers were relaxed and open. I lay there, wondering what you were dreaming, or if you were dreaming, thinking how wonderful it would be to see another's dreams. (or maybe not)

Lying there with my Paddington bear flannel sheet wrapped around me, watching you and watching the pattern of a summer breeze, I almost lost myself in wondering about times past, and people past. I wondered if thousands and millions of women who went before me laid awake at night, taking strength simply from a change in the weather.

I felt young, and yet ancient, a part of some ageless history, some very quiet untelling of truths, thousands of people lying in secret, entertaining themselves by the whiff of the wind, and the scent of rose petals on the air....a yearning to go back, or at least a yearning to share this feeling with someone they love. I felt transformed......................transformed by a cool breeze, and it made me remember a different time............a younger time.

Remembering a time when each morning was ripe with new possibilities, and like each day was a gift wrapped package, waiting to be opened by greedy fingers. Those times,.....there was no thought, no reflection on what the day meant, or what it could be, but rather, just what it was....and what it was.... was immediacy. Too much life and events and activities to stop and think about them. I wonder if that is the only difference between then and now..................that wizened tendency to meditate and contemplate on the events of an everyday life. I am thinking that is what makes me tired so much. Perhaps I think too much, and enjoy too little. Or perhaps it is simply because I know now that all of life's beauty and passion is really in the details. I WANT to think about them. I want to wallow in them, bathe in them, and capture them to remember when I am a very old woman.

But I digress..........

As I laid there, watching you, thinking of all the time we have slept together, just like this, you and me, I remember all of the life we have shared. Not the moments of daytime, shared with the world and shared with our family and our friends and our co-workers, but the moments spent in the darkness, in the night........those quiet times that have formed the knot that is us.

Nights that we spent awake, all night long, playing and giggling and discovering the child in each other, .......nights of romance and passion that made me feel like a heroine in some romance novel. Nights and nights of gentle companionship, whispering thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams to each other, maybe afraid to voice them in the light of day. We've had nights of holding onto each other, when words were not enough to express the pain that life was bringing us and we held on because there was nothing left to do, and nights of shared ecstasy when we've celebrated some small victory for our children. Yes, my love, there have been nights of feeding sleep, nourishing, to begin anew in the morning, and nights of deep petulant insomnia,...nights of "Are you awake? You are, too?" Nights when it seems the only sound was the retching or crying of a sick child and the toilet flushing and the washing machine filling and spinning, filling and spinning. There are the nights of fitful sleep (and many of them) when some little boy (mostly) or girl slept between us, completely unaware of anything except the warm comfort of two stable adults beside them. There are those nights when the intensity of our thoughts kept us awake, thinking, thinking,...........like the cogs of a machine, going all night long. And yes, even a few nights, spent back to back, when our stubborn hearts were slow to forgive and even slower to admit we were wrong.

All of these nights have twisted and shaped us, bent us and molded us into the bundle of parents and people and lovers we are now, strong and unbreakable, a tangle of all of life's details rolled into one.

You, my beloved husband, are my rock. You are my dearest and best friend, my ardorous lover. You are my confidante, my muse and my jester. Without you, I am like a coconut.....sweet and nourishing inside, but only if someone can get to it. With you in my life, I am pure and sweet and sometimes a bit spicy, filled with the milk of sunshine and rain and of life. I love you.

And as I laid there, watching the light move across your face, and I took your fingers in mine and kissed each of them and gently laid them over my heart. And I said a little prayer for you. and I thanked God that you were you and that you were mine, and then I slept.

Channeling Glenn

For those of you who don't know, Glenn is my first husband,...............the husband of my child-self, the prince who came to the damsel in distress...(Mike being the prince who came to the old dame in distress)..........Glenn is gone now, passed into heaven far too early, and very often, I miss him, and wonder what he would be thinking, what he would be saying about life, about the kids,.......about how the world is changing. What creative solutions would he have for the world's ills and what would he be doing?

Once, not long after his death, I took a piece of paper and a pencil, and I began to write.............without thought and without fear, and I wrote what I felt like he wanted to say, and miracle of miracles, it sounded like him...........

So today, I am going to try that again. Let me close my eyes, and clear my thoughts and see who comes calling.

Hey Lori.....

I know you think this is a silly exercise, even though it was your suggestion, but, in truth, here I am....here is what I have to say......

You are doing a fine job with the kids. I wish that Lindsey and JT spent more time outdoors and learned how to grow things,........tomatoes and corn and okras, but they are learning alot of other things. You always were one to teach the kids the subtleties of life, while I taught the more down to earth, hands on things. They are growing up and into fine young people. I cannot believe that JT will be going to college this fall. He really is your baby boy, isn't he, and the promise you made to him all those years ago has not been any obligation at all to you, has it? I am glad that Lindsey knows her mother. I am so glad that she has you and Michael for stability and for love and for health and safety, but she needs a relationship with her mother to know where she comes from and to know why I did the things I did and loved her the way that I did. Give them my love. Give it to them every day and every night.

Now, the big kids..................I am SO proud of them. Do they know how much I love them? Do they know how proud I am of them? Do they know how much I missed them growing up? I loved them so much, then, and now, and really, words cannot even say what I feel about them. They are my youth. When I look at them, I think of us,......you and me at 20, at 25, you and me trying, and trying, and working hard to determine who we were going to be and how we were going to raise these kids......I wish things had been different, in some ways.......The gaining of our wisdom cost them, maybe not more than other kids, but when it is your kid, you want them to have it all, to have everything....We were kids,....taking care of kids,.......and in that way, we gave them more than most......but just like little children, sometimes both of us wanted our own way, and the babies were left in the middle.

No harm done, though. They are who they are and what they are because of who we were and what what we were, and they are wonderful. They are filled with a gentleness and a kindness most rare these days. They love honestly, and they work and play honestly, and we both should feel very, very proud.

And what about that Rhys? He is something, isn't he? Reminds me so much of Keith..........and yet in other ways, he is so much like Jaime.

John is doing well. You remembered what I told you, Lori. When John gets down or discouraged, you only need to turn him around on the road, point him in the other direction and tell him to go.....the rest he can and will do for himself. He is a part of me, and always has been...Do you think that he knows that when he hurts, I hurt?

And Allison.............Whoa......she is one go-getter....Always was.....Does she still read all of the time? She is a beautiful girl, a beautiful stranger,......................although, .I hope not to herself. Can you tell her that I love her and that more than anything she needs to love herself, just the way she is............as I always have..................even when she didn't know it or believe it?

And Jaime......our baby girl is not a baby anymore, is she? I am so proud of her, too....She is the free thinker......remember all the plays she put on when she was little? ever the performer...Tell her Daddy said to stop play-acting and live her genuine life.....

You and Mike.............You all need to relax and take things a bit less serious.......stop worrying so much. Do you have any idea how beautiful life is,.........there? and here? It is beautiful here and we all are fine...............and we watch over you, all of you.....There is nothing that you all cannot do if you work together. Let me repeat that. There is NOTHING that you cannot do if you work together. That is the most important lesson of all.....I wish I had learned it there instead of here. We can, all of us, do anything, be anything, have anything if we realize how much love we all have combined, and if we work together, for one common goal.....

That's true in a family......it's true in a company, a corporation, a community or a country.

We all have our strengths and our weaknesses................some of us grow the food, some of us buy the seed,.........some of us knead the dough, some of us bake the bread. As soon as we accept each other for what we are, we are there.

I like President Obama. Wasn't so sure from the get go..............You know me, I am nervous about organized party politics. He is a good man, an honest man, working hard, and really trying, GENUINELY to change the landscape of this country....I just wish people were not so afraid of change......

About heaven,......Do you remember the song I sang to you the day after I died? it's all true. This is beautiful. It is perfection. It is all the people you love, here together, smiling, singing, holding hands, sharing our loves. There is no jealousy, no strife.....No one worries, or cries, or gets angry. We have everything we need. Sometimes your mom and I lunch together in this little park near my house. It is SO much like sitting in her yard at home, drinking coffee, and watching the cows graze.....it is quiet, and safe, and we talk, and watch the kids,.........and sometimes, I visit Dad.....He spends most of his time at the golf course and is teaching everyone he knows how to golf......they laugh, and take turns and stop here and there to admire the sky....

They are all here, Lori....everyone.....Dad, Granny, Grandma.........your mom,......our lost boys....Uncle G.....Don't you worry about a thing. God wants you to know that. He wants you to know that He is here, and He is there, and that He is in control. He has it covered, all of it, and all of us, and heaven really is about peace....................the peace of no more worries, no more grief.

I met your grandma the other day, your Daddy's mother. She said to tell you that really was her that came that day, singing that song, but that she thinks she forgot some of the words....She says she will remember it all one day and try singing it again.

Tell my mom I love her. And tell her I am so amazed by her strength and her warmth. I am in awe of all that she can do, and all that she has been, to you, to Mike and to the kids. Dad and I laugh about it all the time, and Dad says he could have told me years ago that my mother was made of fire, and was the strongest women he ever knew............

Well, you better get going. I heard Jaime on the phone, asking you to bring some coffee on down....She needs you this morning to be a grown-up..She is a grown up, but she needs another one some days to feel like it is okay to keep growing up. Tell her not to sweat it, the kid is still in there. She can be anyone she wants to be. Just tell her to enjoy it, whatever she chooses that day.

Tell Mike I said thanks for passing on the message. I cannot believe he followed direction so well. Who knew? I should have known, I guess................living with a wise woman so long, surely he knows.....

Okay, get back to me again soon. We're here, watching and laughing and praying and praising, and knowing that we will all be together again...