"Life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis"

It’s breezy and bright, the kind of day that makes me happy to be alive and free. Puffy white clouds float across an azure sky, making curly Q’s and beckoning even adults to eye them with a child’s whimsy.



That one looks like a goldfish, another, ocean waves. They hang in the air like a backdrop to this beautiful stage – God’s playthings.



I walk feeling the contact of my feet with the earth.



For this moment, I am all I need. I am this breeze, these clouds, this moment. "I am nothing; I see all," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. How could I be anything less or more? Want less or more?

And yet, we pay so little attention to this moment and the simple realities around us. We fill our lives with a multitude of ways to block out this reality, take ourselves out of this moment: cell phones, ipods, the intra-web. With all of this technology aimed at connection, we have to wonder are we more – or less – connected?

Tonight, I attended the memorial service for an amazing little family. My friend Stephanie, her significant other Eric, and their tiny month old baby, Kaia. Kaia was born on May 30 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome; you can read about their beautiful and courageous journey here. After a month-long struggle that can only be described as gallant, Kaia's little body could take no more and let go.



Kaia Belle and her parents are courageous and beautiful.



They have helped me remember today to forgive the little trespasses of people and things that may irk me and be thankful, mindful to the little things. Thank you Steph (Sparky), Eric, and Kaia for demonstrating the grace that comes from true love and letting go. I cry for you tonight.



* * * * * * * *
A mother and four tiny mallards swim down a canal that runs through the center of town, nibbling on a scrap of bread. A man runs by wearing only running shorts, tennis shoes and a pair of bulky headphones. People walk by. And then, up ahead, I see them: a tall, thin man about my age with longish brown shaggy hair and a tiny black puppy bounding along beside him. He calls her Moonbeam. She follows him loyally, her floppy big feet bounding merrily along. I stop to pet her, and she bounds to me merrily too, smiling up at me with jovial little brown eyes. I thank her as we part.

For more information about Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, click this link.