Tears.

For many years I suppressed any inclination I had to cry.  I had my reasons but I'm not going into that long and boring stuff.  Then I had suppressed them for so long I literally had no tears.  The past few years I've seen a return of tears and I am learning not to suppress them.  Today, there have been a few tears.

First, I don't know if you've heard of Maggie at BlinkNow.  She was just named CNN's Hero of the Year for her work with children and women in Nepal.  She is the legal guardian of some 50 children in her Kopilia Valley Children's home.  BlinkNow also has about 350 children in their school and trains women to make and then sell items.  One of the 50 was Ravi.  Ravi came to them a very week, sick, weeks old baby whose mother had died. (You can read the story of Maggie and Ravi at BlinkNow.org) Maggie worked and loved and brought Ravi back to life where he became the light of everyone's life and Maggie most of all.  Ravi died last week.  I don't know what caused his death but it has broken Maggie's heart (and mine too).  She posted a long entry on Facebook today about how she feels and how his life and death have affected her. It's wrenching.  I cried.

The VERY NEXT Facebook post was from Kelly at Prayers for Finn.  Finn was diagnosed with a severe heart deformity in utero.  He was not supposed to live, in fact they were told that they could abort him if they wished.  Today is Finn's first birthday.  This little boy who has gone through so many things is still here doing normal baby things.  His fight is not over and he may still lose.  Today Kelly wrote a letter to Finn about how he'd beaten Science.  I cried.

 I'm crying now just thinking about these two Moms.  One whose sorrow is huge, one whose joy is huge.   Hug your loved ones people! You never know when it could be the last hug.

"The Days are Long but the Years are Short."-Gretchen Rubin