Rodney Stotts is the founder of Rodney’s Raptors, an organization that exposes people to nature and educates them about raptors and falconry.
The Dreams That Drew Her Closer to Her Adult Daughter
Wide awake, I sat up in bed before a hint of light entered the room. I’d had another dream about Jennifer, my middle child. She’s 38 now, a wife and a mother of three. Usually in my dreams she’s still a little girl—shy, freckle-faced and with a brightly colored headband holding back her shiny auburn hair. I loved her hair. I’d brush it into a ponytail and kiss the tiny hollow at the back of her neck before she left for school.
Jennifer was a mama’s girl. I never minded being called in the middle of the night to rescue her from a slumber party. “I have a stomachache, Mama,” she would complain, but we both knew she was homesick. I loved having her snuggle next to me as we drove home at 2 a.m. We fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Jennifer had been five years old and her older sister, Julie, seven, when the twins were born. Everything changed. The boys demanded so much of my time and energy, I hardly had any left for their older sisters. I was constantly exhausted—and short-tempered. Writing became my only escape. In retrospect, I saw it so clearly. Sweet, quiet Jennifer, sandwiched between the others, required almost nothing from me.
One afternoon Jennifer made a chocolate cake for a school bake sale. She did it all by herself, carefully spreading the icing between the layers, covering the cake with chocolate frosting. I stood there admiring it, when somehow she bumped the plate and the cake fell to the floor. The layers slid apart, seemingly in slow motion. We both stared in shock. Then Jennifer sucked in her breath and said softly, “I’ll have to make another one—and there’s no more cocoa.”
I glanced at my watch. Was there any way I could possibly run to the store before I picked up the boys at school and dropped them at their various practices? I was on a tight deadline for an article that was due. Before I could come up with a solution, Jennifer did. “It’s okay, Mama. I know you’re busy,” she said matter-of- factly. “The top layer is fine. I’ll just take that to school.”
And I let her.
While she was in college, her father battled brain cancer. One day Jennifer and I stood outside his hospital room. “He’s not going to be here to give me away when I get married, is he?”
I shook my head sadly, absorbed in my own pain. A year later, her twin brothers walked her down the aisle. I couldn’t help wishing that she and I had spent more time together before she started life on her own.
Eventually Jennifer had three children of her own, two boys and a little girl who looked amazingly like her. They lived about an hour and a half away. Sometimes it seemed as though she were worlds away. I often dreamed about her—dreamed that we were close again, like we were when she was small. But this dream was different.
I got out of bed and went to the kitchen, going over the details. No wonder I’d been jolted awake. Unlike my usual dreams about Jennifer, in this one she was a grown woman and mixed in with a crowd some distance away. I stood on my tiptoes and waved and hollered, “Jennifer! Over here! I’m over here!” But she didn’t notice me.
Was it too early in the morning to call her now? I longed to hear my daughter’s voice. Often when I phoned, she wasn’t home and I ended up speaking to an answering machine. She was busy with the children or playing tennis or substitute teaching. When we did talk, our conversations floundered as if we were talking through a wall. That morning as the sky filled with light, I dialed her number. She answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted. “I had a dream about you last night.”
“You did?”
I could picture her in her kitchen, her long hair darker than it was when she was a child but still lustrous and beautiful. I wished I could reach out and touch it.
Then Jennifer surprised me. “I dreamed about you too. But it was terrible. I won’t even tell you.”
“You can’t help what you dream, Jen. Go on, tell.”
Her words tumbled out. “We were walking to a wedding, and we took a shortcut through a vegetable garden. I was in the wedding, so I had to be on time, but a farmer hollered that I’d stepped on one of his tomatoes. I offered to pay for it. He said, ‘Okay, 43 cents.’
“That’s when I realized I didn’t have any money and asked you for a loan. You said no, and I started crying. Your purse was a black box with a lock on it. I somehow managed to pry it open. Inside you had lots of money. ‘Please, Mother,’ I begged. You said I had stepped on the tomato and so I would have to pay for it. I ran all the way home, got the money, ran back and paid the farmer. But by the time I got to the church, the wedding was over. I woke up in tears.”
The pain in her voice almost cut my breath off. My purse, a locked black box. Was I that far out of reach?
Jennifer attempted a laugh. “Wasn’t that ridiculous, Mother?”
Dry-mouthed, I replied, “No, not at all. There were so many things I should have done for you….”
“Well, you could have gotten up from your typewriter sometimes,” she said. “You were always writing.”
I couldn’t undo the past, but I loved that she was being honest and open. This was my chance.
“Jennifer, you’re right,” I said. “I overlooked you. You seemed so capable. I forgot you were just a child.”
There was silence on her end of the line. The communication seemed broken again. That was as far as we got. God, please bring Jennifer back to me.
I thought about her all morning. Finally I called an old friend. I told her about Jennifer’s dream and our awkward attempt to connect. “You know,” she said, “your relationship probably broke down over a lot of little things, like that cocoa you told me about. It’ll take little things to mend it.”
Little things, like the cocoa. Little things that stood for bigger things. Like the 43-cent tomato? I had read in the Bible how God spoke to people in dreams. Was my dream God’s way of prompting me to try again with Jen?
From my desk drawer, I pulled out a note card. “Dear Jen,” I wrote on it, “this is what I should have done in the dream.”
I found a small, golden mesh bag with a drawstring, something I’d been saving for years. I dropped 43 cents into it, then stuck the bag and the note into an envelope and addressed it to Jennifer. I barely made it to the post office before that day’s mail went out.
The next day, the phone rang while I was at my typewriter.
“Mama, I got the 43 cents!”
“That was quick!” I said. “I wish I could have been just as quick to reach out to you when you were growing up, Jen. Can I ever make it up to you?”
“Forty-three cents is a start,” she said.
We were talking. I was tremendously encouraged. “Bet you can’t guess what I’m doing,” I said.
“Bet I can.” Jen laughed.
“What?”
“Writing about 43 cents.” That was my Jen. She knew me like a book. We both laughed. We still had a way to go, but we’d begun. The whole thing started with a dream. Two dreams really. They had given Jen and me an opening, a lead to follow. So what if it meant doing something that seemed a little foolish—Jen telling me about her dream and me sending her some change. Nothing’s too foolish if it’s done out of love. And nothing is too foolish to restore love.
Enjoy more stories by Marion Bond West.
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The Do’s and Don’ts of Decluttering as a Family
You’ve put it off for months, maybe years, but the dawn has arrived, and it’s time to thoroughly clean and declutter your house. Not alone, of course. Even better—with your family!
Whether you parent young kiddos to young adults, if your children live with you (or have recently moved back home) it’s time to declutter together. Get your husband or wife involved, too.
You made the mess together, and decluttering is a family affair.
Set Communal Goals and Deadlines
You didn’t create the clutter in one day, and you likely won’t conquer it in a single day either. Clutter, especially the kind accumulated over a number of years, requires strategy. Sit down with your family and, together, decide what you want to accomplish by when. Set reasonable goals and deadlines that work with everyone’s schedule.
Maybe agree to make the kitchen tidy by next week, but donating old clothes gets until the end of the month? Whatever you decide, establish deadlines so is working toward the same ends.
Schedule Special Decluttering Dates or Times
You’ll be surprised what you can clean in fifteen minutes! If the prospect of getting started with the whole house sets your family ablaze with arguments, create designated times to tidy. Think of these tidy times as sprints, not marathons.
Set your phone timer (or kitchen timer!) for fifteen to twenty minutes every other day. While the timer is counting down, declutter. All hands on deck! Scrub corners, do dishes, toss things in the trash. When the timer stops, you and your family stop. Even if the decluttering isn’t finished, make the rule and stick to it. You’re in it for the long haul.
Organize New Storage Systems
Part of the problem might be storage—you don’t have enough! Baskets, shelves, and plastic tubs are your new best friends. Discuss with your family what they want the house to look like. A super clean Swedish flat? And old English manor with many shelves? Figuring out how exactly you want the house to look can help guide your storage decisions.
Getting things out of the house is the ultimate good, but if you truly can’t bear to part with something, a new storage system is a good compromise.
Apologize for Whatever Was Said in Anger
Remember to be gentle, with yourself and each other. Decluttering might feel overwhelming, even impossible. The fact that you and your family are working together to clear the house is cause for celebration. You’re doing your best. There may be disagreements, and it’s important to apologize, but you’re all in this together. Take pride in what you’ve accomplished.
The Door of Hope
Eight o’clock, Sunday morning. I pushed open the door to Scottsdale Bible Church and the familiar sounds of the orchestra rehearsing brought back a rush of sweet memories.
For years I had played the cello in that orchestra. I loved playing for the congregation every week—the fellowship, the praise music, even the rehearsals—everything about it. Back then I was happy and fulfilled. A wife and stay-at-home mom.
Now, after living in California for two years, I was back here in Arizona. Divorced. My daughters were away at college. For the first time in my life I felt truly alone.
I slumped onto the empty back pew and reached for a tissue in my purse. Lately, I carried them everywhere. I never knew when the tears might start up again.
I wanted so badly to play in the orchestra again, to go back to something that had brought me so much joy, but I just couldn’t face anyone. What if they asked me how things were? What would I tell them? That my 29-year marriage was a failure? That my world had imploded? That I was alone?
If only Emily were here, I thought. She would understand.
Emily and I met my fifth year with the orchestra. We sat next to each other—she, the only violist and me, the only cellist among a sea of violinists. The first few weeks we made small talk and it seemed like the orchestra was all we had in common.
Emily, a single mom, was a busy accountant. I came to rehearsals in jeans and a T-shirt; Emily was usually decked out in a smart tailored suit, having come straight from her office or a meeting with clients.
But one day I noticed that her cheeks were wet with tears. What could make this beautiful, strong woman so sad? I wondered. Suddenly I felt the strangest urging in my heart.
“Do you want to go to breakfast tomorrow before work?” I asked, thinking she could use someone to talk to.
“I’d like that,” she said. The next day we met up at a café. We talked about the orchestra, our kids, nothing too deep. We really hit it off. Soon we were meeting at the café every week, sharing our lives over oatmeal and mugs of steaming coffee—black, no sugar, just the way we both liked it.
One day I got brave enough to get a little more personal. I finally asked Emily what had made her cry that day at practice. “A few years ago my husband left me and our four children,” she said. “Not long after that, he died.”
I was floored. All this time she had been carrying around a deep, private pain. I marveled again at how different her life was from mine. I couldn’t imagine being a single mom with such heavy responsibilities. “How do you do it all?” I asked her.
“At first, things were really, really hard, but there wasn’t time to stop and think about it all,” Emily said. “I just had to move forward. Tears became a fact of my life. I know someday they will stop, but in the meantime I always have a tissue handy.” Then she smiled in spite of herself.
Her honesty made me open up too. I told her how my husband had been out of work for several months. That the stress was taking a toll on our marriage and that we might have to move.
“Give your worries to God,” she said confidently. “He’s there to guide you.”
From there, we talked about our faith, shared Bible verses and prayer requests. We kept up with our weekly breakfasts and shared news of other things in our lives—her latest hikes, my volunteer work.
Then my husband found a job in California. Although we’d moved many times throughout our marriage, change was never easy for me. And with both of our daughters away in college, I wondered how I would fill my days without my good friend. I met Emily at our café to tell her the news.
“Don’t worry, Robin,” she said. “You’ll find new friends. And we’ll stay close. God will make a way for you and be with you every step. He always has been.”
In the midst of packing up to move, I worked on another project—a gift to leave with Emily.
I’d been reading through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and I remembered one of my favorite verses, from Hosea 2:15: “Here I will give back her vineyards to her, and transform her valley of troubles into a door of hope. She will respond to me there, singing with joy…”
I found a photo of a door online and superimposed the verse over it, printed it and put it in a simple silver frame. At our last breakfast, I presented it to Emily.
“I hope this reminds you that although you have faced hard things in your life, you are going to walk through that door of hope one day. I just know it.” I hugged her tightly and said goodbye.
Once in California, I struggled to find a rhythm. My husband was consumed by his work and I spent most of my time alone. I planted flowers in our garden, joined a health club, eventually made some new friends. But there was a heaviness in my heart that I just couldn’t shake.
I e-mailed Emily about it. “I’m praying for you,” she wrote back. “You’re going to be just fine.”
But things only went from bad to worse. My brother-in-law died unexpectedly, my husband’s company was sold, leaving him unemployed once again, and the pressure built up in our marriage. I stopped writing to Emily or even talking much to anyone.
I thought marriage counseling would help. We gave it a try. A few months later, though, my husband announced that he would not continue the counseling—or the marriage. He would stay in California and I would return to Arizona. Alone.
Numbly, I began the arduous task of trying to move forward and start over.
Sitting in the back pew that Sunday morning clutching a tissue, I thought about the last two years. The heartache, the unknowns of my future, my constant tears. And I thought of Emily. I’d lost track of her. How ironic, I thought. Now I’m the one crying.
After the service, I mustered up my courage and went backstage. I saw a violinist I’d once played with. “Do you know where Emily is?” I asked.
“Oh, didn’t you hear?” she asked, looking surprised.
“Hear what?”
“Emily reconnected with her high school sweetheart sometime last year,” she said. “They got married and she moved to New Jersey. I’ve got her new e-mail. And, say, you should come back to the orchestra. We can always use another cello.”
I mumbled thanks, scribbled down Emily’s new address and hurried off before anyone could ask me any more questions.
Back home I typed out a short e-mail to Emily, congratulating her on her new life and wishing her every happiness. I told her that my life had also changed—but not for the better.
“Emily, when we first met, I wanted to encourage you,” I wrote. “Now, it seems that our circumstances have completely reversed. Any advice you might have for me would be so helpful. Love, Robin.” I ended the note and hit send.
The next day I checked my e-mail—there was a message from Emily!
“Robin, thank you for your note. I am sorry that there is so much pain in your life right now, but you will survive this and thrive in the end. I can’t say how you will do this, but I know you will. Please write when you can. I am always here for you.”
Instead of face-to-face breakfasts, Emily and I reconnected computer-to-computer.
Emily was right. I did make progress, slowly. I found part-time work, began volunteering at a hospital and rejoined the orchestra at church. My tears subsided just like Emily’s had. It was a happy milestone the day I realized that none of my pockets had any tissues in them.
One afternoon I came home from work and found a package leaning against my door, a New Jersey return address in the corner. There was a note tucked inside. “I’m still unpacking a few boxes and found this. I thought perhaps it might be your turn to have it. Love, Emily.”
I carefully unwrapped the layers of tissue paper and smiled at what was inside—a plain silver frame, showcasing a photo of a door, with a simple verse superimposed over it: “Here I will give back her vineyards to her, and transform her valley of troubles into a door of hope. She will respond to me there, singing with joy.”
I’d wanted those words to give hope to Emily in the days of her tears. Now they were here for me.
I still don’t know exactly what prompted me to ask Emily to meet for breakfast that long-ago day. Or maybe I do. An urging from the One who’s been guiding our steps along a path of dear friendship. Guiding our steps right through that door of hope.
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The Dog Who Opened His Heart
April 10, 1998. Tokyo. I sat on the bed in my tiny hotel room, getting ready to head off to practice for the Japan Open, with one thing on my mind.
For the last 10 years I’d competed all over the world on the professional tennis tour. I’d reached the semifinals at Wimbledon and been ranked as high as twelfth in the world. Tennis was my life.
I’m a praying guy, so you’d think I’d be asking God to help me get my serve right before my first match. But my mind was on something else. It was time to give up my dream. The dream I’d been holding on to for the past two years—one that had nothing to do with tennis.
My dream was to get a dog. A yellow Lab, to be exact.
The life of a professional tennis player—nine months of the year on the road—was not a recipe for responsible dog ownership. But ever since my fitness coach took me pheasant hunting for the first time with his friends and their dogs, I’d been obsessed.
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I couldn’t stop thinking about how intelligent and well-trained the dogs were. How they were like teammates to their owners.
They reminded me of the dogs I’d grown up with on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota. I was the youngest of four, nearly nine years behind my next oldest sibling. By the time I was in fourth grade, I was the only child at home.
My closest companions were our two Siberian huskies. They were outside dogs and loved running around in the cold. My parents gave me a wooden dog sled one Christmas, and many a winter day I’d hitch the huskies to the sled, jump on and take off across the frozen lake like I was in the Iditarod.
Maybe that’s why I was drawn to Labs. Not only were they excellent companions, they served a solid purpose. That was the odd part of my dream. Even though we lived on a lake famous for great fishing, my family wasn’t into fishing or hunting. We were sports-centered.
My mom’s father taught her and my older siblings to play tennis. So when I came along, it was no surprise that I picked up a racket when I was four. By nine I was playing at Nationals. Later, I received a tennis scholarship to Stanford and left after one year to turn pro. I’d been competing on the tour ever since.
After that outing with my fitness coach, I was set on finding a Lab to be a hunting companion.
There was a big stumbling block, though: Who would take care of my dog while I was away on tour? I was single and lived alone. My siblings had their own lives. My parents lived nearby, but they were nearing 70.
“David, we don’t want that kind of responsibility at our age,” Mom told me. “We have had enough dogs to know we have had enough of dogs!”
It was time to let go of my dream. I felt like a little kid who’d just found out the Christmas gift he’d prayed for all year wasn’t under the tree.
Then a paper slipped under the door of my hotel room. A fax, from Mom.
This wasn’t unusual. She often sent faxes with news and encouragement from home, with some tennis tips and Bible verses mixed in.
What was unusual was how she began: “I came across a beautiful yellow Lab on my morning walk through the neighborhood,” she wrote. “His owner lives a few blocks from us. But I’ve never seen his dog before.” That’s odd, I thought.
She described the dog’s beautiful coat, big brown eyes, cheerful personality. “If I ever got a dog,” she closed with, “I would get one just like that.”
If she ever got a dog? Was this really my mom? Hadn’t she told me that she was done with dogs? What had gotten into her?
The next day, there was another fax from Mom, this one even more bewildering. “I called the dog’s breeder to find out more about her dogs and breeding philosophy.”
The day after that, another fax arrived with this previously unimaginable statement: “I sent the breeder a down payment on a puppy today.”
What?! You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.
I wish I could say the news inspired me to swashbuckle my way through the Japan Open, but I lost in the early rounds and flew home.
We went to visit the litter of puppies. One of them, a male, looked straight out of a dog show. He had an athletic build, a beautiful buff-colored coat and almond-shaped brown eyes. He walked over to me and fell asleep with his little head resting on my shoe.
He was the one. I knew it. Dad was soon building a run outside their house in anticipation of his arrival.
It didn’t take long for me to see that Ben was no ordinary dog. His puppy misbehavior—chewed shoes, accidents, nipping—was minimal. He learned basic commands quickly. He was intelligent, gentle and thoughtful.
That dog run? Ben never spent a night in it. He just seemed to belong right with us, wherever we were. When I was on the road for tournaments, Mom and Dad were happy to dog-sit. I called home and got updates every day.
Soon I started Ben’s training. That turned our walks into an adventure. “Fetch it, Ben!” I’d shout, throwing his rubber retrieving dummy into the marsh that bordered a street in my neighborhood. He’d disappear into the cattails…then burst out with the dummy in his mouth and tail wagging.
“Atta boy,” I’d say, patting his head. Sometimes I would hide. He’d always find me too.
If I knocked a tennis ball over the fence while practicing, Ben would run into the trees to find it, sifting through the dozens of balls that had landed there. Minutes later, he’d trot out proudly with the exact ball that I had hit—never anyone else’s—in his mouth.
Everywhere I went, Ben went too. Now I knew why Jacob in the Bible named his son Benjamin, meaning “son of my right hand.” That’s what Ben was to me. I loved him dearly and deeply. Ben brought something to my life that I never knew a dog could.
The year Ben was three, 2001, was a time of change. I’d been dating Brodie, a girl I’d known for most of my life, but that year we broke up. I retired from the professional tennis tour.
I was in my early thirties, and injuries had taken their toll. I continued to play parttime in senior’s tournaments as I set out to discover the answer to the question What’s next after tennis?
One thing made the transition easier: Ben. God brought Ben to me at just the right time, I thought. So I’ve got to trust that he has new and good plans in store for me.
I was driving with my parents one day, listening to the radio, when out of the blue Mom posed a question that was more like an answer: “David, have you ever thought about getting into radio?”
I hadn’t. But a few weeks later I got an unlikely phone call from a radio station, asking if I’d like to host one of their programs. Soon I was producing and hosting The Christian Worldview every week…with Ben at my feet in the studio.
After recording, it was time for The David and Ben Show. We loved heading up to Lake Superior for fun. “Careful, boy!” I’d say, before tossing his dummy into the rough, freezing surf. No matter how high the waves were, Ben dove in with his signature resolve.
Soon after he turned eight, Ben got sick. At first I thought it might just be fatigue, but when he stopped eating I took him straight to the vet. The diagnosis was devastating: prostate cancer.
I was heartbroken. I cried out to God, “Why did you bring Ben into my life only to take him away so soon?”
Treatment failed. I couldn’t bear to see him suffer anymore. Mom and Dad couldn’t either. We called the vet, who came to the house. She assured us that we were making the right decision to put him down.
Ben was lying on the couch, nodding in and out of sleep. He’d lost a lot of weight, but his face still had that look of serenity and nobility. I put my arm around him and buried my head in his neck. “That’s my boy,” I whispered. “You’ll always be my boy.”
The vet found a vein in Ben’s rear leg and administered the injection. He turned his head to look, then rested it back on the couch and closed his eyes.
“His heart has stopped,” the vet said quietly. “He’s gone.”
I remained slumped over him, gently stroking his side.
It wasn’t until I watched the vet leave with my beloved Ben that a dam inside me broke. Mom and Dad wept for hours with me. “I’m so grateful to have had Ben,” I said. “I just don’t understand why he had to leave so soon.”
I remembered how Ben had come into my life right when I was about to give up my dream of getting a dog. And yet God moved to make my dream come true. He even changed my parents’ minds.
He knew Ben would teach me how to live more fully and love more deeply. In the midst of my grief, God expanded my understanding of his higher plans for us, and his grace.
Remember Brodie? We got back together and we’ve been married for five years. We have a son, Tommy, and—this probably won’t surprise you—not one but two Labs, Gracie and Billy.
All because my boy Ben opened my heart.
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The Dog That Brought Them Together
I was introduced to my wife, Julee, by her dog, Rudy, a rather corpulent cocker spaniel. I was walking on West 72nd Street in Manhattan on a seemingly ordinary May evening when along came Rudy, trundling at a measured but determined pace, completely undeterred in his stately progress along the busy sidewalk by his fellow New Yorkers, who were using their two legs to try and get past him. On the other end of his leash was a dazzling blonde with massive green eyes. I could almost feel a breeze when she batted her lashes.
“That’s the fattest cocker spaniel I’ve ever seen,” I blurted out, thinking this might be a good way to strike up a conversation. I was met with an annoyed look for my efforts. Julee tried to keep moving, but Rudy suddenly became obstinate. He stopped, looked at me, woofed perfunctorily, and bulldozed his way over, dragging a scowling Julee behind him and nearly pulling her off her pumps. She was an actress and singer, I was soon to learn, rushing home from an audition to walk her dog.
We walked around the block together while I tried to smooth-talk my way out of my opening conversational salvo.
“Rudy has the most magnificent ears I’ve ever seen,” I offered.
That got me another turn around the block and Rudy, in what I surmised to be an effort to impress me (or perhaps to help me impress his owner), tried to pick a fight with a much larger and younger dog, and I was able to help extricate him from the conflict. By the time I walked Julee and Rudy to their building, I felt I was coming close to redeeming myself. Julee showed lukewarm interest in my offer of Chinese food later that week, scribbled her phone number on a taxi receipt pulled from her purse almost as an afterthought, and disappeared into the elevator, Rudy giving me a final look over his shoulder as he slipped past the closing door. Upstairs on the twelfth floor, Julee let herself into her apartment, tossed Rudy a treat, and then dialed her mother in Iowa. “Mom,” she said, “I just met the man I’m going to marry.”
Me? I was just hoping to get to see her again. On the way home I ducked into a pet store. Usually you get the girl a gift. I got Rudy a little something, planning to drop it off with Julee’s doorman in the morning. An inner voice told me it would be a good idea.
Sometimes God shouts, sometimes he whispers, and sometimes he sends a woof.
The Dog of My Dreams
My 12-year-old dog Lucy was lying under the kitchen table, one of her favorite spots.
She looked up at me with those intelligent eyes of hers—one blue, one brown—but I knew when she didn’t get up to greet me that the day I’d been dreading had come. I called the veterinarian, who’d taken good care of Lucy ever since I’d adopted her, and asked her to come over one last time.
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Our Disney trip was special on many levels. There was the excitement of seeing the characters, awesome shows, rides, parades and fireworks. There were oh-so-yummy foods and somebody saying “I want a bite” whenever we bought a croissant, donut or some other delicious treat. There were priceless times of young cousins and adult siblings spending time together. 
In the midst of all the laughter and acrobatics, I whispered a prayer thanking God for the blessing of family time, for the sweet memories that bind all of us together. 