Tell You A Story

I'm bored with all this blog promotion stuff especially since I can't promote the real book.  I was supposed to sign that bad contract yesterday - whew did I dodge that bullet!  Still, I haven't had a new follower in three days! Where are you A-Team? 

Anyway, to relieve my panic that we're going to top out at 106 followers, let's try this:

I can read the stats for my post.  If y'all (channeling Charleston) can share this post with friends/family/and drive visits to the site up to 200 views on this post then I'll post Chapter Three.  I'm telling you, it's better than Chapter Two and not as sad as Chapter One.

Now, to make it worthwhile to read, I'm going to share a little story.

Last night, I combated the telecommuter blues but buying some nice things - a lamp and mirror- for my home office.  I also tried to reign in my clutter and recycled four large grocery bags of papers.  While sitting on the floor, I happened upon all of Liam's kindergarten homework that I'd saved from two years ago. 

I kept some, especially the drawings, but the traced alphabet and numbers could go.  I was shuffling through, page, after page, after page - I have a clutter problem - and with each page I smiled broadly remembering my little five year old who is now nearly eight.  So much homework, artwork, projects, report cards and then in the middle of it all was the one page that defines our story and makes Liam's school folder different from Moira's and most other children's.

There it was, the page that I, not Liam, had made with a diagram of his heart, a list of his medications, an explanation for why he needed extra supervision on the playground while still on plavix for the stent that was placed between his heart and his lung the week before he started kindergarten.  It was just there with all the happy papers, and it shocked me.  Because in my spot on the floor, despite being surrounded by a two-foot stack of medical bills and receipts from over the years, for just a little while I forgot that part of my life is being afraid and knowing words like hypoplastic that spell checkers don't believe are real. 

And as intrusive and annoying as that paper was, I am grateful to be at the point where I can forget because I never imagined I'd be there, even for a few minutes.  I am also grateful, that in the dozens of pages of Liam's prolific kindergaren experience, it was only one page that was anything but the preciousness that can be found in any five year old's artifacts of a life lived fully.

That is the point of the book.  And I remember it every day, that this is the point of the fight, the point of living, and it's why I believe someday it's going to happen that I can share that message with more people.  It matters. I believe that it matters.