September 11, 2021 – It’s been twenty years since our world changed and as today winds down I can’t help but think how difficult this anniversary still must be for the thousands of families who lost loved ones that day. But for the grace of God, what happened that day could have happened to any of us.

Even though my family was not directly touched by the loss of a loved one, we all lost something that day. We once again lost the belief that America was untouchable; a belief that had only been shattered once before on December 7th. Wars and attacks on Americans didn’t happen here on our soil. That was something that happened in foreign countries, or so we thought.

Our sense of security was shattered that day and I for one have not fully regained it. For months if not years after 9/11, the sound of a plane flying low overhead caused a sense of panic. I would hold my breath and wait for the moment I knew the plane had passed by and any perceived danger was gone. It took a long time for that fear to go away and inexplicably, today, on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, it was back as a very low flying plane rattled the windows in my house. With no idea what it was or why it was flying so low, I could only hope that there was nothing sinister about the pilot’s actions.

The events of that day and the war that followed have been horrific but looking back, I finally realize that as terrible as it has been, there have been positives to come out of it. While our current climate might lead one to believe otherwise, when pushed Americans will join together as one against our common enemies. National pride rose to a level unseen since World War II after 9/11. Flags were flown in the most unexpected of places for weeks and months. The Pledge of Allegiance took on more meaning and the voices of thousands standing at attention with their hand over their hearts singing the Star Spangled Banner continues to drown out everything else before every sporting event. The men and women first responders who ran into danger rather than away from it became national heroes. The passengers aboard Flight 93, like Minnesota’s own Tom Burnett, Jr., became household names and role models for bravery. Patriotism meant something once again. America truly was the United States of America and people from countries around the world, many whom had lost their own citizens on that fateful day, reached out in support and solidarity against the terrorists who thought they could bring our country to its’ knees.

Today I remembered what I felt that day twenty years ago. I remember the horror, confusion, fear, and sadness, but I also remember joining my fellow employees in a circle around the City Hall flag pole, hands joined together, as we said a silent prayer. I remember the stranger who saw what we were doing as he drove by and jumped out of his car asking to join us. And I remember that as our circle widened to encompass the hands of a fellow American, the sound of our own voices reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with true conviction and pride. None of us knew at that moment what the future would hold for our country, but we knew that we would get through it together with the support of one another. We knew that America truly is beautiful when all Americans pull together to face evil head on as one united country.

For those of you who are too young to have your own memories of that day, it’s unfortunate but true that most likely you will have your own Pearl Harbor or your own 9/11. If you do, please remember the lessons learned by my generation and the generations before me…we are the UNITED States of America and we can come through anything.

I leave you with blessings for all those who have lost their lives in the ongoing war against terrorism. They truly are the heroes we all should strive to be.

Be well my friends.

~BAL

Have you heard the saying, “Getting old isn’t for the faint of heart?” When you are in your teens, twenties, thirties or even forties, getting old isn’t even on your radar. Then seemingly overnight you begin to see the first signs….a few gray hairs at your temple…wrinkles around your eyes and mouth…that pickle jar that just won’t open no matter how hard you twist. Laughing it off you hope that by not acknowledging it, the inevitable aging process won’t happen to you.

We all know that’s a fantasy and while some are naturally blessed with a graceful aging process, others run into it full steam. I’ve noticed it most when I see someone I used to work with. Grey hair has won the battle over their natural color. Their wrinkles are significant and they walk and act like old people. Is that what happens when you retire? Do you age overnight?

Old people are my grandparents’ age. Not me or my friends, yet the signs are there and have been for a while even though I don’t feel old until I get up from a chair and have to stand still for a minute because my knee has stiffened while I’ve been sitting. Or when a few hours of pulling weeds in the yard means I can hardly walk the next day. Or when I suddenly realize that I’m no longer happy to take the parking space at the far end of the lot and actually keep circling the lot until I find an empty space close to the door.

It’s happening to me now and on those thankfully still rare days when I am in a lot of pain for whatever reason, I can see the day on the horizon when I will be as familiar with the pain relief aisle of the drug store as the back of my hand. My friends and I are already spending more time talking about medical issues than any of us would ever have thought. Will someday I be one of those people whose social life revolves around medical appointments?

Here is the thing about aging and it’s tied to something I have written about before. Checks and balances. You can’t have good without having bad. It’s the same with getting older. There is a lot about getting old that stinks but there is also a lot that’s good. People give up their seat for you and open doors for you. You get discounts at grocery stores and retail stores. Some cities have a dedicated “senior” center and dedicated recreational programming. Neighbors offer to shovel your sidewalk for you. You’ve seen enough of life to make better decisions and the younger generations look to you for advice even if it is from an old person’s point of view. That’s all great, but it’s not what’s best about aging.

A couple of weeks back I met a lifelong friend for lunch.  We live about two hours apart and only see each other a rare few times a year – a pattern interrupted by COVID.  Sitting across the table from her, I realized the best thing about aging.

When you have aged, the friendships you have developed along the way have also aged.  Those friends, who you may not have seen in months or even years, have gotten older along with you and when you get together again, you pick up right where you left off the last time.  They know who you are as a person and not just the person you show to strangers.  They can laugh at you and with you in the same moment and never judge you.  They understand you and whatever you are going through.  That kind of friendship is only developed over a lifetime and if you are lucky enough to have one, then you can handle anything that aging throws at you.

I am blessed to have many such friends.  Some are actually family members and others, like the friend I mentioned, are ones I have made along life’s journey.  With these people in tow, I know that as I age, I can face it head on.

So here’s to getting older my friends and doing it with grace and dignity with your friends at your side!

Be well….

~Barbara

When I finished my first manuscript I learned the first little thing about writing….don’t rush it.  The manuscript, while a nice love story, was seriously bad and I just didn’t see it.  As proud as I was of the work, it was more than a bit disheartening to have a close family member give it back to me with a complete list of everything that was wrong with it.

Still I had written a whole novel and that was something.  It was a few years before the next one, a mega novel of well over 140,000 words, came along.  It had good bones, but I had learned the second little thing about writing…more is not always better and not every thought I had in my head needed to be in one single book.

After that, manuscripts flowed out of me and as my writing got better, pressure from family and friends to publish the stories became more intense. As a relatively private person I couldn’t imagine opening my work up to the criticism of others, but finally dove into that pool of criticism and published “Remembering You.”

Although well received in the small circle of people that are connected however remotely to my life, books didn’t exactly fly off the shelves and that’s when I learned the next little thing….launching a debut novel just as the country locked down due to COVID-19 was a really bad idea!  The one and only book signing was cancelled almost before it was scheduled.  There were no author talks and the one retail store that carried the book closed for the duration.  Word of mouth was the only way books were sold.

In the meantime, convinced that the good reviews the book was generating online would mean publishers would jump all over publishing my next work, I started sending queries out to  publishers and agents.  Research into what those folks were looking for became a daily task.  I bought books, scoured websites and read reviews.  I even created spreadsheets to track when a query was sent in and when I could expect a response.  I was primed and ready for the success I had finally begun to believe would come.

That’s when the almost weekly slap in the face that is rejection began.  Couched for the most part in stock responses like “Your work is not quite right for us,” or “We don’t believe this work is marketable,” each rejection was a dagger to my heart and soul.  Before long I hated to even open my emails.

Then things changed. As soul crushing as each rejection became, it was a different kind of little thing that began to push me on. Complete strangers leaving a five star online review. People liking and following my Facebook author page. Readers stopping me in the street to ask when the next book would be published. Each ten second positive thing became a reason to continue on until that one email I had been waiting and hoping for finally arrived.

An offer of a publishing contract with a great company. A company beloved by its stable of authors who welcomed the newbie into their fold with advice and positive reinforcement and a willingness to share innovative ideas for how to build readership. They provided a cascade of little things that in the difficult journey to finding success as an author, have provided the boost that I need to keep going.

One of those little things happened this week. BookBub, a company that reportedly has 10,000 visits to their website each month, made me a recommended author! I have no idea how they select those recommended authors, but that little thing was pretty cool and after all the rejections I am not even embarrassed to brag about it.

I share this story in the hope that we all remember that little things…a kind word, a compliment, or even a smile exchanged with a complete stranger….can change a life. It’s something I strive to do each and every day and hope that you too can make it your goal to become one of those little things in the life of someone else. It can change the world for the better right?

Be well my friends…

~BAL 

Any misconception we as humans have that we are in control of our own lives should have left me years ago, but this past weekend I was reminded once again that life can change in the blink of an eye.

It was a family outing at a baseball game.  There were laughs, bonding, and shared memories being made and if the Minnesota Twins had been winning, it was on pace to be one of the best times I’ve had in a very long time.  Until it wasn’t.

We had just left the parking ramp when my brother-in-law texted me because he couldn’t get in touch with his wife (who happened to be driving our car).  Usually quick to tease me about things, the jokes we sent back about why she wasn’t answering him fell flat.  Then he sent one very direct text.  “Tell her to call me now.” 

At his words, the car grew silent and somber.  Their dog, a dog we all adored, had apparently had a stroke and she was in trouble.  My sister was desperate for answers about what exactly happened but being ninety miles away there was nothing we could do except make phone calls to get help for my brother-in-law and drive as fast as we safely could in the hope that she could get home to say goodbye before her beloved dog was gone.

For a few miles, we all said nothing – too afraid to say the wrong thing, too afraid to say what the rest of us animal lovers knew – that it probably was time to say goodbye.  This wonderful dog had been a rescue and she came with a load of medical issues that had arguably made her life a challenge.  They had overcome and learned to deal with each challenge as it came, but the healthy times were becoming less frequent and as the pup’s health continued to decline, my sister and her husband were struggling with making the inevitable decision that all pet parents must face.

As the dark landscape rolled by, a quiet voice from the backseat told a story about the dog.  A story that brought a smile to our faces and helped dry the tears of my sister.  Then there was another and another, and soon enough we were reminded of how wonderful the pup was and even while we all knew the end was most likely finally here, those shared memories brought a smile to our faces and eased the initial shock.

As difficult as it was, they said goodbye to their beloved Princess the next morning amid a flood of tears but knowing that they had rescued her from a bad life and given her one filled with love and joy.  That little furry being had touched all of us and will never be forgotten.

The evening was a not so subtle reminder that life is balanced by death.  Happy is balanced by sad.  Joy is balanced by sorrow and that life changes in the blink of an eye. 

Be well my friends….

~BAL

I am a self-admitted Olympics junkie and have spent the better part of the last two weeks either watching the Games, or searching online for information about the Games.  Maybe that’s your jam also, or maybe you are someone who rarely watches because after all, summer offers our own opportunity to participate in any number of sports, but I thought I would take a moment to reflect on this year’s summer Olympics.

For most of my life I have loved learning about sports that aren’t otherwise part of my world and this year’s Olympics offered a plethora of choices like skateboarding, BMX, surfing, and mountain biking. I will never do any of those sports and yet it’s easy to see how they have developed such a rabid following across the globe. This statement will show my age, but the youth who pretty much developed these activities have somehow showed all of us that these have become legitimate sports and not just kids messing around. Those “kids” are now Olympians and, seemingly overnight, they have become role models for every other kid who is learning a trick on their bike or how to skate a rail.

That’s the beauty of the Olympics.  These athletes, many of whom toiled and trained for years in relative obscurity, have now been brought into the spotlight for the entire world to see.  Win or lose, gold medal or finishing in last place, they showed us what true grit and determination and sacrifice can do.  They are the best of their sport and in many cases, the very best of us. 

These men and women showed us the love they have for their sport and for representing their country.  Even when bested in their quest for that elusive medal, they exhibited sportsmanship, compassion, and pride in their fellow competitors. 

The updated Olympic motto translated from Latin is “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”.  This year’s Olympians, no matter what country they represented, truly epitomized that motto.  For seventeen days, they brought together a world that is still reeling from the devastation of COVID-19 and from the Opening Ceremony to tonight’s closing one, reminded the world that when we work together, we can be so much better than when we are apart.

Once all the pageantry is over and the athletes have returned home and the cardboard beds of the Olympic village have been recycled into something new and innovative, let’s try and remember how it felt for these seventeen days to be together as one.

Be well my friends…

~BAL

This week I learned I am officially old. After an exhausting, scorching summer with so little rain the state is officially in a severe drought, I woke up to a lovely old fashioned thunderstorm. The mere thought of lawns turning green and the flowering bushes in my yard being able to bloom once again was enough to put a smile on my face even if this particular turn of weather wasn’t to Annie’s liking. She had been in her hidey hole in the basement since the first clap of thunder was still too distant for my ears and when a seriously loud boom let loose right above my house, I wondered if I should join her in the basement!

But work was calling and knowing that I had a big day, I headed out. Dark as night, there were few other cars on the road and as my windshield wipers tried and failed to do their job against the fierce winds whipping the rain sideways, I drove slowly in part out of caution, but also because I truly like storms. Always have even as a kid. But after only a few blocks, I drove through an intersection that had seemed perfectly normal until my car carved a path through standing water that created waves higher than my roof. Now that got my attention. Risking a ticket in this state that is serious about distracted driving enforcement, I called the Public Works Department and reported the intersection (before the water overflowed into people’s yards) and continued on.

I hadn’t been expecting a storm that morning and even with an umbrella knew that I was going to be soaked by the time I got to work. Even the quick run to the car had done a number on my perfectly styled hair and by the time I actually got into the building I was sure to look like a drowned rat. Pulling into the parking lot I noticed the road that runs between the parking spaces and the building was now a river of water – certainly much deeper than the top of my shoes – but there was a blessing. The bus garage had an open door. Those doors are usually only open for short periods and if I wanted to get in that way and not have to stand in the rain trying to unlock the front doors, I knew I would have to hurry.

So I grabbed my things, cracked the car door open just a bit to pop open the little umbrella that had been in the car and ran for that open door. I made it and felt pretty proud of myself for doing so. The bottom half of my body was completely soaked, but I had made it!

Shaking off as much excess water as I could I stood in front of my office door and started digging through my purse for my keys. After several minutes and finding nothing even resembling a key in the massive purse, I dumped the whole thing out. Where the heck were they?

Finally I had to admit the key chain with my house, car and office keys was gone. Note I said “car” keys? That’s when I realized that in my mad dash to get in the garage I locked my keys in my car! 😦 It was going to be an even worse day than I had imagined and suddenly that storm I was enjoying, was not so wonderful.

Using a spare key I got in eventually. There was a spare house key in my desk and a spare set of car keys at home and the plan was when it stopped raining I’d ask a friend for a ride home and all would be right in the world. Then I did something I regretted. I told people at work I had locked my keys in the car. As you can imagine incessant teasing ensued!

It rained for about ninety minutes after I got to work and as the rain was tapering to just a light drizzle, the thought came to me that in my mad dash to get inside, maybe I hadn’t even bothered to lock the car doors. Usually I give the fob a push on my way in the door and without the fob in my hand I might have just left the doors unlocked. There was hope at last!

Here’s where the story takes a dramatic and even more embarrassing turn. Once I got close enough to my car, actually right in front of the engine, I discovered that not only did I not lock my doors, but the car was still running! And to make matters worse, the two people who arrived after me and parked on either side of me, had said nothing about it! As I stood there alternating between laughter and a few swear words, I realized that with the rain/thunder those two people most likely were unable to hear the car running…heck I barely heard it until I was right at the front of the car. This was all on me.

After getting teased for locking my keys in the car you would think I would keep this latest turn of events to myself, but what is life if we can’t find humor in the twists and turns of our day? The story was shared with friends and family alike and a day that started out with a lot of drama, ended with shared laughter.

The whole experience made me think that there just isn’t enough laughter in the world. If we could all learn to laugh at ourselves, even when we do something embarrassing, maybe we would all be able to get along just a bit more. So feel free to laugh at me. I don’t mind.

Be well my friends. ~BAL

This past week I had some issues with mice.  Yup….I hear the “ick” coming out of your mouth even as I write this and trust me, I’m with you now.  But it wasn’t always that way.  Mice didn’t scare me and in fact, I thought they were kind of cute, at least until recently.

My cat, a house cat who loves to play with her toy mice for hours at a time, was acting unusual.  She would sit in front of me with a sad little meow, give me a look, and then run out of the room.  Normally pretty in tune with her behaviors, it took me four times of her doing this to realize something was off.  Setting my book aside I said, “What’s wrong Annie?  Show me.” Of course she understood and immediately raced for the kitchen. 

Nothing seemed amiss until I noticed one of her toy mice laying upside down on the rug in front of the kitchen sink.  But wait a minute!  This toy mouse had feet!  (For you non-cat people, toy mice don’t come with feet!)  OMG!  It was a real mouse.  Tiny, mostly grey with a white underbelly and feet, this little thing was sprawled on its back, legs to the sky, dead as a door nail. My wonderful Annie had somehow found it and warned me about it. What a wonderful cat!

As I said I’m not afraid of mice, so I grabbed a paper towel and just as I reached for the body, the formerly dead mouse twitched! Okay, that threw me a bit. It now called for an additional paper towel.  Carrying the cute little mouse outside I placed it gently in the tall grass and watched and waited for it to move again.  It took some time and I began to wonder if that twitch had been an end of life involuntary movement. But that mouse had been playing opossum apparently and eventually it crawled away into the yard.  I had saved a life and it felt good.  That was my first mistake…allowing it to live. 

Back in the house I praised Annie to the heavens for her mouse catching skills and we went back to our life forgetting the adage that where there is one mouse there are certainly others.   At 2:00 a.m. Annie woke me as she ran round and round the house slipping and sliding on the hardwood floors.  Cats often do “zoomies” in the middle of the night, but my girl hadn’t done it for a very long time. Still, nothing unusual I figured. Closing my eyes I concentrated on going back to sleep until suddenly I was wide awake and knew without a doubt that she didn’t just have a case of the zoomies.  She was chasing a mouse!

Sure enough, when I turned on the light, there she was crouched in attack mode, low to the ground, tail twitching furiously, her eyes locked on the hallway closet.  With a deep breath I opened the closet door, seeing nothing amiss until the slightest movement of a plastic bag sitting on the floor.  A flash of tail, a brief glimpse of grey was all I saw before the mouse scattered for cover and I started moving other things that were on the floor. With no cover left, Mickey made a mad dash for freedom with Annie hot on the trail. 

This mouse was slightly bigger and infinitely less cute then the first one and before I could figure out how to stop it, it was in the broom closet and I was forced to clear that out too.  With each thing I moved I froze expecting the mouse to come darting out.  In the end only a quick grab for the broom and stabbing it at the mouse ended his dash for freedom.  Doing a bit of acrobatics allowed me to hold the broom on the mouse while grabbing a plastic cup to put on top of him not caring that the cup was crushing his tail.  The translucent cup allowed Annie and me to keep an eye on him and, most likely realizing his goose was cooked, he stopped struggling.  Placing a heavy container on top of the cup to secure his imprisonment, I used the time to clean out the rest of the closet…just in case…while Annie stood sentinel in front of the mouse.

Having ensured there were no other mice, a dustpan slipped under the cup secured the mouse as I carried him to the kitchen door. This time, instead of carefully placing the little terrorist in the grass, I flung him into the night where he summarily bounced off the neighbors’ house as I turned my back and went back into the house and slammed the door.

One mouse might have been an aberration – maybe I brought it in the house somehow.  But two?  Well that’s another story. First thing Monday I called in the experts and it was worth every penny.  It’s been days and I’ve not seen hide nor hair of a mouse.  Annie, who just a few days earlier had been on high alert, perking up at sounds that I couldn’t and didn’t want to hear, is now relaxed and at ease.  I still turn on a light before entering any room and my glance instantly goes to the floor, but I am sleeping better.

However, that’s not the end of the story and even I have to laugh at this one.  As I said there are a lot of toy mice in this house and Annie likes to carry them around and occasionally jump up on the bed and play with one.  As I got into bed the other night I briefly considered moving the one she had been playing with, but thought having it on the bed was a better option than on the floor where I might step on it in the middle of the night and jump to the wrong conclusion about exactly what type of mouse it was.  So it stayed…until about 3:00 a.m.

Somehow in all my turning and twisting that night, that toy mouse found its way under the blankets and next to my skin. My scream could have roused the dead.  Out of bed and across the room in a heartbeat Annie raced to my side as I began to tear the bed sheets apart to find the little bastard and end his miserable life!  That’s when Annie, calmly as could be, simply picked up her toy and walked out of the room wondering what all the fuss had been about and leaving me feeling as foolish as you would expect.

The next day at work, as I updated my friends on the latest mouse episode, I could finally laugh at myself.  And isn’t that what we all need to do?  Life comes with enough drama to let stuff like a couple of mice cause us such anguish.  Hopefully my home is once again my own, but if not, it’s not the end of the world…except for the mice of course!

Have a wonderful day everyone and if you are stressed from mice in the house or just life in general, find a cozy spot and read a good book. If you need a recommendation, you know where to find me.

~BAL

The news is full of it. Murders, mass shootings, angry demonstrations, and violence within families. It’s enough to make us want to give up and never leave the house, but I think making the world better boils down to one simple concept…kindness and being kind to everyone we meet and interact with. It’s impossible to know what others may be dealing with in their life and being faced with hostility or anger doesn’t mean we have to respond in kind.

I learned this lesson in 1998 when a tornado struck my hometown. As an employee of the City, I dealt with hundreds of citizens in search of help. One man was particularly hostile during every interaction with him and after a few of these interactions, I began to snap back at him. Over the next several days each interaction became more upsetting to both of us to the point where I cringed whenever I saw him.

In the years that followed I had the same negative reaction to him. Then he died and I learned that others saw this man as one of the nicest they had ever met. I couldn’t understand why he was so disagreeable with me until it dawned on me that having your house destroyed in a tornado had been more than he could cope with and my interactions with him, when he was under such duress from the tornado, were not really a true reflection of the man. It was a blip in time when I could have made things better for him by being kinder. The opportunity to be kind, when he needed it the most, was something I let pass me by and which I deeply regret. He passed away without my having had a chance to apologize to him, but I think maybe he would be happy to know that because of him, I now try my best to be kind to everyone even when they are screaming at me. I don’t always succeed, but I do always try.

So today, if someone is less than kind to you, please remember this story and shower them with kindness. As the graphic says, “Just be a good person…”

Be well my friends….

~BAL

When I was a child we spent the Fourth of July at our cousin’s farm in a neighboring town. Everyone in our extended family, from the oldest to the very youngest, was part of it and while the adults sat in lawn chairs under the tree that cast the most amount of shade, my cousins and I explored the farm with us city kids helping with the chores like gathering eggs and watching my uncle milk his cows and shoot a steady stream of the warm milk straight from the udder to the barn cats who would happily lick their whiskers to catch every last drop. A pickup game of softball with the corn cribs as the backstop was always part of the day with the adults joining in the fun.

After we had worked off our excess energy it was back up the hill for lunch where we were greeted with a table laden with hot dogs, burgers, corn on the cob, tomatoes and cucumbers, watermelon, Rice Krispie bars, brownies and more. If we were really lucky, Grandpa would make homemade ice cream filled with eggs and fresh cream churned by hand in one of those old fashioned hand churns I would give anything to have these days. As each of us kids devoured our scoop, Grandpa would put on a heavy winter parka and enjoy his own hard earned bowl, shivering in spite of the heat and his warm coat.

Their town had their own fireworks show but my Dad always had to get up super early so more often than not we said our goodbyes to the cousins and headed home just as the sun was setting. Disappointed at first, we soon remembered not all was lost. Our faces pressed to the car windows as we drove down the highway, we watched for the fireworks that appeared magically in the night sky off in the distance while “ooh’s” and “ahhs” escaped our collective lips in the back seat.

It was the same every year for decades but as we have grown and expanded our own families, my siblings and cousins have developed their own traditions and the Fourth of July at the farm is no longer. I will always remember and long for the simple enjoyment of those days and hope that you too have special family memories to remember.

Happy Fourth of July!

This week I participated in a sad event. A young Marine, who died while stationed overseas, came home. As the procession passed through my hometown, hundreds of residents lined up along the highway to pay their respects. Flags were flown, salutes were given, and tears were shed for this young man we didn’t know. The fact that he was a stranger didn’t matter. Putting aside the often divergent thoughts about the military, in that one moment in time we were all one; grieving for one of our own in solidarity with his family, friends, and fellow military members.

Like me, the people lining the highway were changed by the shared experience of honoring a stranger and looking into the tear filled eyes of his friends and family members as they passed through our community. We were participating in something none of us wanted to experience but one that is a part of life and one that hopefully makes us more empathetic to the sorrow of others.

But there was something else I learned about my community that day. As I watched everyone walk away, it was easy to see they too had been touched by what we witnessed. The easy banter we had shared while waiting for the procession was gone. The mood was somber and solemn as parents reached for their children’s hands, couples pulled each other close for a lingering hug, and more than one person wiped away tears as they nodded and shared a sad smile with the stranger beside them. We had been part of a reminder that life is all too fleeting and we should never forget it.

Be well my friends…

~BAL