The Sweet Stuff

         My affection for food is well known in my entourage.  (Yes, I have one:  two dogs and the folks at the Coyote Country  Store have my back).

         So, it  is only natural that I would view the status quo of my life as the "icing."  The sweet stuff.

         The evidence is overwhelming.  A quick glimpse at my first eighteen years would be enough to prove how blessed my life has been--growing up loved, with two parents, two brothers, two sisters in a small town.  Healthy, happy, safe. Opportunities to go to  great schools with  even greater teachers.  A church family who laid a strong foundation for an important core matter:  loving as Jesus loved.    

         There was just enough passion and love in my marriage  to bring more sweet moments:  healthy pregnancies with healthy baby girls.   I have lived long enough to see my daughters grow up and to be blessed to have a larger family who  remains deeply embedded in their lives.    Both have relationships with all four grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins that extend beyond just Christmas cards or once-a-year gatherings. 

          More proof?   For a brief, magical time, soulful love rejuvenated my broken spirit.  Yes, it was a relationship  destined to break my heart, but the experience had a way of healing it, too. 

          From day one of having my first real job, the joy of teaching has never gotten old; I get tired,  but tired is so way better than unfulfilled.  

          The joy of sharing travel and sports and writing and music and food with friends and family--hard to beat.

          And each day for the past fifty-five years, my mornings have begun by waking up and knowing--not guessing or worrying or hoping--that someone needs me.  Mine has been a life of purpose.

          So that brings me back to the icing. 

          I have had an entire life of "cake."  Now I just gratefully gorge myself on the good stuff on top:   good health, daughters with a sense of humor, the voice of parents (now in their 80s) on the other end of the phone, Hi-Def TV, eating ice cream cones, visits with old friends and emails from former students, sitting in the back yard by myself,  a faith that grows closer to fine, driving the El Camino with the windows rolled down, and the list goes on and on and on........

            My purpose now is to live a life of gratitude because I get to live in the sweet stuff.  

            My purpose now is also to live a life of humility because so many people in our world die without even a taste.