Dear Reader:

I wonder now, when I take time to reflect back on my life, if one of the major purposes of our existence is to get to the place where we finally do emerge from our cocooned youth and become the person we needed way back then to “show us the way.”

Yesterday while eating lunch out with a friend a little toddler unsteadily walked past me on his way out of the restaurant. He kept turning down his dad’s assistance for help by refusing to hold his hand. I gave him a high-five as he tottered past me. He stopped with a big grin on his face and kept coming back for another high-five and then another. He had us all laughing.

He was as proud as a peacock for being so “cool.” I love interacting with children…they are my people. (Maybe because in some ways I never grew up- my personal “Peter Pan” resistance movement.) Despite this, however, I think there is always a longing to become the person who can help someone else out with similarly shared childhood and early youth situations, like our own growing up, especially those with similar  personalities. There are some children out there we just “get”…we know them, understand them, because once we were them.

When I came across the title photo message I liked it. When I was a typically selfish teenager, I remember, often, wishing and daydreaming that dad hadn’t died when I was little and mother hadn’t lost her hand to cancer. How different my life would have been…so much easier. (which translates “more money” in the teenager world.)

My dad would have become partner at the family lumber company, we would have had a nicer home, bigger car, and access to more opportunities, like my cousins in town, whose parents had all these things. Thank goodness most of us manage to out-grow these “Me, Me, Me” years and realize (down the road) that money doesn’t buy happiness.

Instead, being raised by a single parent- my mother with one right hand and a determination to keep us all together as a family unit, made me who I am today…a fighter.

What a gift I was given to be privy to seeing first-hand  how qualities like courage, determination, strength, and faith can take you farther in life than all the gold in the world. Thank you mother for the role model you were for me!

I remember, while watching the ETV Ken Burns documentary on The Roosevelts, hearing a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt concerning her husband Franklin She said that before he contracted polio he was a good man, afterwards he became a great man.

FDR had grown up wealthy, things had come rather easily to him, he had few challenges that left lasting impressions on his life, and then suddenly his world turned upside down- he contracted polio. There was no amount of money that could restore his health to its former self so he had to make the decision to become stronger and better than his affliction. He did…and his life was never the same…it was better.

Saturday, as I watched the strollers, walkers, and runners all around me I thought how each man, woman, and child there had a story to tell. Something or someone, in each of their personal lives, brought them to Daniel Island on a Saturday morning…when many could be sleeping in, shopping, meeting friends for brunch, whatever.

(Here are a few left-over photos from yesterday displaying some family and strangers’ photos demonstrating their sacrifices by simply showing up.) By merely participating in the event, we are all stronger for the effort.

All four grandchildren had their “down times” Saturday… They were hungry and their parents wanted naps for them and themselves…it is tough taking little ones…thank you Walsh, Mollie, John and Mandy for your personal sacrifices. *Even Captain Americas’ and Hulks’ have melt-down periods..sometimes  resorting in sit-down strikes.

So until tomorrow…Thank you God for past challenges that make us who we are (becoming) and who we are destined to be.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Please say a little prayer for Rutledge. He will have surgery early this morning at MUSC to remove his adenoids and then replace his ear tubes again. His ear drum burst before the storm and he has been on antibiotics but the doctor thinks that this cycle will continue… unless his adenoids are removed also.

Rutledge is just one of those unfortunate children whose tubes keep falling out and he keeps an infection in one ear or the other almost continuously. We are all praying this will stop the pattern once and for all. “BE BRAVE CAPTAIN AMERICA…BE BRAVE!”

* And LOOK HE IS! Hot off the press a few minutes before nine this morning I was sent this photo of my courageous “BRAVEHEART” Rutledge. Boo Boo is so proud!!!!

*Tommy and Kaitlyn’s personal memory to Rudy.