Hello again,

I missed yesterday because of a funeral. I think it is amazing how some people deal with death. My mother happens to be a funeral director, and I worked at the funeral home she is at for a while so I thought I had see just about everything until yesterday. We were celebrating the life of a friend's grandfather. The family is all very musical and CG loved music, so it was like a concert with a casket there. It was very different but in a strange way very uplifting. There was sadness there, of course, but everyone was very relieved that his suffering was over. That is the way I think it should be. CG had a long happy life, there were struggles, but he had a large family that loved him.

One thing that I thought the entire time is that nobody seems to make time to see their loved ones as often as they should. You really do not know how long someone is going to be here, and you should let them know how much you care while they are around. It seems that everyone wishes that they would have done this or that with their loved one but it was to late. Its always like that song "Cats in the Cradle" we are to busy trying to climb the ladder to appreciate the things that mean the most.

As I think of this, I cannot help but remember a poem that my mother inlaw told me when I had my daughter:

Cleaning and cooking can wait 'till tomorrow

For babies grow up, as we've learned to our sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep.

I was so worried about making sure my house was clean and we had enough money to provide for her. I was so busy working and doing this and that to provide, I missed several important things, like her first steps. Now she is walking everywhere, and learning to throw a temper tantrum, which I'm not so crazy about. I still worry about these things, its my nature to be a worry wart. I am tired of having to nickel and dime my way to get her a coat for the winter, but I learned a lesson when she took her first steps. Those problems are going to be there when she goes to bed, so I need to take the time to be with her while she is still awake. She is growing up so quickly and I don't want to miss a single milestone.