Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Story of the Traveller from the Parable of the Good Samaritan

A certain traveller went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves. The traveller was stripped of clothing, wounded, and abandoned, left half dead.

Now it happened that several travellers passed that way, some of them even religious types. And when they saw me, they passed by on the other side of the road so as not to have any contact with me.

But a certain Samaritan, journeying on the same road, came to where I was. And this Samaritan, having seen me, showed me compassion, the first I had experienced in a long, long time. My wounds were bandaged, oil and wine poured into them for cleansing and healing; and the Samaritan set me on an animal, brought me to an inn, and took care of me

The next morning, before this good, good Samaritan left, there was a soft conversation with the inn keeper. It seemed the Samaritan was paying the inn keeper to care for me! And the Samaritan promised to reimburse the inn keeper for anything extra that might be spent for my care.

I rested at the inn for a fortnight, my beaten body so broken that I could hardly move. I could scarcely drink even water for the first couple of days. But the inn keeper was very patient with me, cleaning my wounds, reapplying salve and bandages; bringing me simple, nutritious food and cool water.

More importantly, the inn keeper talked with me and listened to me. Wasn't I aware that that road was the stomping ground for nefarious types who would seek to do me wrong? And my kindly host gave me some tips on self defence and how to avoid being taken in by people who would prey on me.

My great Samaritan friend returned -- I had not been forgotten! I was treated to new clothes and a haircut and then was taken back to my home. Assured that everything was as it should be, the Samaritan left me alone with my gratitude and my thoughts.

The scare kept me anchored for quite a few months; but then I heard the road beckoning me again.

I've always been a bit restless, a bit of a wanderer. You see, I found out when I was quite young that my mother gave me up when I wasn't even a year old. I landed in a lovely family who treated me as their own. But still -- how awful must a kid be if a mother can give it up?

I think that because I felt so dispensable, so disposable, I decided that maybe life in general was this way too. I decided early on never to miss an opportunity for a thrill, because who knew if that chance would ever return?

And so I headed back on the road, full of anticipation as to what this new adventure might hold. Before long I caught up with a group of people heading in the same direction I was. We started to chat and they invited me to a party they were planning on attending -- as a matter of fact, one of them confided, they had already started partying. Would I like to join in? I felt the rubber tourniquet tighten around my arm and shivered as the needle pierced my skin. But in a few moments I was flying, laughing, happy like I always imagined I could be. I was the life of that party. My new friends couldn't get enought of my smile, my jokes, my kisses. I felt like I truly belonged.

The next day (or several next days -- who could keep track of time?) I awoke on the side of the road with my head in a puddle of my own vomit. My hair was matted, my nose broken; my backpack and coat stolen; and through the torn thin clothes still left on me I could seen the shadows of hideous bruising on my legs and arms. Too weak to walk, I crawled to the shade of a shrub nearby and prayed for death.

But instead of death finding me, a friend and fellow traveller came across me! Deeply distressed at my condition, my friend took me to the hospital and begged them to get treatment for me.

The nurse and the doctor did a thorough examination of my person, pausing at the tracks on my arms. Then after I had been hosed down they put me into lockdown while I came out of the effects of what I had had shot into my veins.

The night terrors started: any time I would fall asleep I would see the faces of my sisters, my children, my parents, the mystery woman who gave birth to me and then abandoned me to this slow death that my life had become. I would scream, imploring someone, anyone, to sit with me and talk me down, to bring me water, to give me something for the pain and the fear. The social worker assigned to my file assured me that I would be fine in a few days.

And in a few days or weeks I was fine. I contacted one of my friends, who picked me up and took me for a meal and then took me home to my empty apartment and the myriad pictures of my children.

I live for my children. After this last scare I determined that I would be a better parent to them. I found a job I enjoyed, and with the money I made I took my children on a little holiday. We had so much fun being together, being children together, being in this circle of acceptance and love.

When we returned home, they asked if they could stay with me for a few days. So I went out to buy some groceries; while I was gone, I bumped into an old friend and immediately felt the craving again.

Some hours later my friend dumped me off on my doorstep. My beautiful firstborn son helped me inside. He held my head while I retched and moaned; he piled warm blankets on me when I shuddered from the cold. In the early morning light he went to the store to buy eggs and milk with his own money and he fixed breakfast for his younger sister and brother. He gave me coffee, and finally I slept.

When I awoke, they were gone. How could they not go? I called another friend, a real friend who sighed, "Not again," but nonetheless came and picked me up and took me to yet another centre for yet another attempt to get me clean.

This has been the story of my life for about a decade now. You could play connect the dots on my arms and legs, even my feet and neck -- nowhere you can find a vein has been safe from the love-hate battle I have tried so hard to fight; but I am getting so tired and I fear I am losing this game.

Only three dots connect my heart. My children. It is for them that I have tried so hard to battle on, it is for them that I have wandered from place to place trying to find something to fill up this emptiness -- something that will last longer than the few moments of blissful oblivion, those few moments of feeling the emptiness inside filled up that my captor can provide -- so that I can make up for the holes in their hearts that having a part-time parent has caused.

I have left everyone who has loved me. I have left everyone who has been loved by me. Now that I have told you my whole story, will you leave me too?

"No," you reply. "Trust your children to me. I will never leave them nor forsake them. I will never leave you nor forsake you either. Come to me and I will give you the rest you need."

Why would you want me? I ask brokenly. Just look at me ... and I throw off my coat, exposing the piercings in my arms, the piercings in my legs and feet, the record of my pain. Just look at me, I whisper again.

"Just look at me ..." you whisper back. And you throw off your coat, exposing the piercings in your hands, the piercings in your side and feet, the record of your pain.

And as I reach my scarred arms out to you, you stretch your scarred hands out to me. And you lift me up into your arms and cradle me next to your heart. Your tears wash away the haunted facelessness of my past, the recurring terrors of my present, the dimming spectre of my future. Your hands gently touch my arms and with your touch my flesh is made new.

And as I close my eyes and relax in your embrace I know I can safely fall asleep, know that I am with the one who will always love me.

And finally I am at peace.
L.M.B.P.
January 28, 1967 - November 21, 2009

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Andy's Speech

Sorry for interrupting your desserts andconversations; I'll try not to speak for too long. I have some inadequate thanks to offer. Before I say too much I would like to tell you all that one of the lingering effects of my strokes, or perhaps a side-effect of the pills is that I have become untrustrworthy as regards my emotions: I regularly collapse into tears -- thought the provokation may seem slight; and as there is nothining slight sbout the emotion I feel tonight, I apologize in advance for what I will not be able to prevent. Given the circumstances of my health, many good people have reacted with concerrn when I start to cry -- which is somethng those people have not been accustomed to seeing. So far my unimaginative response has been "don't concern yourselves until you hear a thump" I offer the same to you.tonight, please excuse my tears.
As long as I am on my feet I am physically Okay, I have been told that tears are no bad thing: A little inappropriate at times but nothing more.Please excuse me and do not concern yoursleves unless you hear that thump.The truly embarrassing lingering affect of these strokes is the necessity of using my sleeve to mop up around the left side of my mouth. Miss Manners, one of the authorative voices in the Teahouse from the beginning, would find such behavior utterly inappropriate: Gentle Reader,would it be so difficult to plan to have hankerchief about your person.My apologies to you all. I did bring tissues tonight, but have used them all.

With excuses for my current frailties, let me me thank you all for coming tonight, thank you for all the kind words you have spoken, for your prayers, your gifts, for the hands you have offered and for the embraces you have wrapped me in. One of the many warm things that Karyn has wrirtten in her blog speakes of the value physically and spiritually of a hug.On the basis of hugs alone, what you you have given me tonight is beyond measure -- how can any word of thanks be sufficient when the gift cannot be measured, The many prayers that have been offered up for me, are a clear sign that you have received and have been humbled by a gift that cannot be measured You understand my trouble tonight as I struggle to thank you for what has been given by you and through you. I have been told tonight that I was spared on that Sunday morning in October because there is still some small part of God's plan that I am to fulfill, Please pray that I don't foul that up as I did the opportunity of coming among you in the embrace of Karyn's love to participate in the TeaHouse. I was offered an unmeasurable gift when I was brought here but being to rooted in dreams of my own and ignorance, I turned away, and never even thought to offer thanks.Some of the mistakes we make can be corrected and some remain with us to steal our peace as we continue to torment ourselves for what we did or failed to do. The worst I have suffered is the knowledge that desipite the greatest forgiveness, I cannot forgive myself, I do not dream of the possibility of undoing what I have done -- I hope that I gain the wisdom to understand what I am doing and never again do something thing I cannot forgive..

As a step in that direction, let me continue giving thanks. Though my thanks to all who have come here is inadequate, your kind words and the warmth of each embrace has told me that whatever thanks I am able to give has been received in the spirit in which it is offered. Though I would not in so doing slight the contributions of any one of you, I would offer my particular thanks to Morley and Donna Ramsey. It was the two of them who concieved this night and helped bring it into being. Morley compensated for my inabily to drive by briniging me out here, And he and Donna offered me food and a welcome in their home, The first thought that ran between my ears on crossing their threshold was: " If Karyn had seen this she would have wanted the Teahouse to be here..Morley's continuing friendship has done so much for me since I made my great mistake. I need not repeat that there is no meaure of thanks that we can offer to our firends for what they give, but our friends forgive our shorcomings. Morley, thank you.

And Now let me offeer my thanks to Karyn. No amount of thanks is measurable to what Karyn has given to me. Nor is any amount of apology measureable to the failure I have been to what she expected I would be. I hope that the harm I have done to her fades into the forgotten past and does not affict her for another day. What she has given me is so great -- I look to her gifts to guide me through all the days yet to come.

When Morley first suggested the possibility of tonight to me; My first response was no -- I thought of the burden it would put on Karyn -- She works so long and hard already, I know what it is to add a event like tonight to the daily effort of operating the Teahouse. It is to my great shame that I have to acknowledge that had circumstances been different and I was still here and operating the Teahouse with Karyn,and someone else had been knocked down by a stroke or two. I would have objrected to to tonigght-- some complaint would have fallen from my lips and I would have created enough of a fuss to spoil the evening for Karyn and the memory of it for both of us. The event would have taken placedespite my objections because Karyn wanfed to happen and it was the "right" thing to do-- the kind of thing we had in mind when we talked about what tbe Teahouse could be. It would have happened but not until I had ruined the memory we wouqld have had of it of it, and I had mae i something that I would be embarrassed o recall. Again, my thanks, inadequate as the are, to Karyn for taking on the burden of opening her doors and alowing me to feel the love that I have felt tonight.

Something more than adding to Karyn's burden crossed my mind when Moley suggested this night: an apparently needless concern cossed my mind: I am always worried about how I will be received in Three Hills. As I drive up highway 21 with the lights of town in sight, it strikes me that there may be people who have sat at home on weeknights and have had it cross their minds that:"if only that guy had not been so weak and stupid, the Teahouse would be open tonight." And what about people trying to organize birthday lunches? I apologize to everyone for causing the Teahouse hours to be restricted. I have been amazed by Karyn from the first time I chatted with her in the coffee room in the office where we both worked -- that amazement has done nothing but grow , particularly when she told me she was going to reopen -- She is something else isn't she! I am so sorry for not carrying on with her dream-- may the Teahouse carry on as the treasure it is for many years to come.

As I have not been able to chat with everyone tonight,I thohgh I would say a few words about the path that broughf me here. I have been fortunate enough to spend most of the summer at my sister's home on lake MacGregor. My sister, Alison, is brilliant woman who has had a long successful career in the mortgage business.She has done this on her wits alone, after finishing high school in Montreal, she did not get any post seconary education, my parents University savings having been wasted on me. Fifteen years ago, Alison and her husband Mike bought 8 acres of waterfront oatfield on the east side of Lake MacGregor. I have been a regular there ever since. The first few years we were all in tents and touques. After that we put together a couple prefab sheds -- one became a bunkhouse for them and the other served as an outhouse -- I stayed in a tent. After a couple more years they built a garage--..some garage:it had a fridge, stove, microwave, and a bedroom for them, I slept on a couch or in the boat. Ten years or so later they built a house. I got the bedroom in the basement. A year and half ago they built a huge shop with an office for Mike, my brother christened it 'the Garagmahal, Soon after that they sold their house in Calgary and moved out to the lake fulltime. This spring, with me no longer working as a tech for a software company,.they invited me to live out there and handle chores they didin't have time for. As the downstairs basement had becomd my sister's office, I moved into the bedroom in the little garage. It was a beautiful arrangement.I called it my version of Walden. I spent my monings drinkinng coffee and writting a novel. I emerged at some time between one and two and did chores until suppertime at seven or eight. I was in that bedroom in the garage on Oct 2 when I woke up with a terrible cramp in my left leg.I tried tl ease it by pointing my toes at my chin, but that didn't work so I got out of bed and fell on the floor.I could squirm around on the floor but as I couldn't move my left asm or leg I couldn't get up. After what I guesses was about a half hour I regained ccontrol over my leg -- that was probably the longest, lonliest half hour of my life. I got up an managed to fall back into bed.I just stayed there for the rest of the morning. In the early afternoon Mike came out to the garage looking for me-- yelling about how lazy I was, -- he had been out doing what he usually does, helping a neighbour, and had come out to collect me so that we could go down th highway to a tree auction in the town of Blackie. My legs and arms were fine so I got out of bed and got dressed -- . I went up to the house like nothing was wrong and poured coffee in a go-cup for the trip, Everything was fine until I tried to drink s ome of the coffee -- as soon as it hit the back of my throat it came right back out, I tried a couple times and the same thing kept happening. Mike did a u-turn and said we were going back to the house; on the way I explained what had happened earlier, then I convinced Mike that going strght to the hospital was a bad idea. back at the house, I opened the door to the truck and tried getting out, I fell flat on the driveway. Mike was really rattled by this -- probably thinking that somehow this was going to end up being his fault when Alison got back from the business trip she was on. Mike got me back on my feet --I said I was okay but immediately pitched over and my head put a dent in the truck's passenger door. Mike then told me to stay put and went off to get a chair. with some struggle he got me into the chair -- I pitched forward out of it as soon as his back was turned. Again he told me not to wander off and that he was going for help. When he started the truckI thought he was going to run over me -- he didn't miss by much. He took off, leaving me rolling on the wet gravel drveway. Pretty soon a neighbour, John, came flying into the yard in his big white Crown Victoria. I was certain he was going to run me over. He and his buddy Neil got out and began yelling at me. When Mike got there, the three of them picked me up and pitched me into John's car. I was going to the hospital whether I liked it or not. I recovered the use of my left arm and leg in John's car during the wild ride to Milo -- It might have been a product of fear as we slid sideways toward the ditch. The road was a little washed out. John drove me to the firehall in Milo. A nice EMTive named Darlene checked me out. After a cosultation and some radio chatter an ambulance was called from Vulcan, with the idea of getting me to the hospital in High River..Later in hospital I was pleased to tell various doctors that I walked to the ambulance on my own. I was not so pleased to report that I had another stroke in the ambulance. In the ambulance all I could think of was the number of movies that include a scene where the ambulance doors pop open and the gurney and patient zip out onto the highway. The EMTs, two very professional guys did not let that happen, After some disscussion and more radio chatter during which I objected to being called middle-aged. The EMT said" you've had a stroke, you can't call yourself young anymore. The decision was made to skip High River and go straight to Calgary. The first thing they did in Calgary was a C/T Scan and give me the bad news that I didn' have a brain at all. The next day was wonderful. The curtains around the bed parted and there was Karyn smiling at me -- my condition began to improve immediately.

I thing nothing dramatic planned for the next while. The doctors told me two things when they let me out of the hospital: try to get back to your normal routine, and use common sense about what you do -- I told them I could do one or the other but not both. My medical condition is such that I am subject to seizures, which are no fun at all, so I am leaning toward the common sense option, The cause of the strokes has not gone away: it seems that the corated artery is built of a number of layers of tissue, On my right side the inside layers peeled away and folded over. completely blocking thr flow of blood, It seems that a clot formed on the downstream side. The doctors said that this makes corrective surgery too dangerous. They also said that I should avoid doing anything that included the chance of a blow to the head-- no more hockey or skiing. No one could be sure but it may be that the whole thing , the inner layer of the artery separating and folding over, was the result of a blow to the head, and from the timing it may have been trying for just too much 'air' while water skiing. It may turn out that in the long run, my last words were muttering to myself : a liitle more speed and I can land it.

Now I have to be wiser -- which has never been one of my strengths.

Sunday, November 22, 2009







The Tea house family gathers together ...

Morley and Donna hosted "An evening in support of Andy" on Wednesday, November 12.

Andy, one of the three founding members of Nilgiris, had a stroke at the beginning of October and -- of course -- with no supplemental insurance coverage and no way to work in the aftermath, his medical expenses had started to mount.




Over 40 people participated in the evening, which featured a dessert buffet, Holly Cole crooning on the sound system, Bernard Callebaut chocolates, lots of conversation interspersed with bursts of laughter ... and Andy himself, who was strong enough that day to be able to attend, visiting with each of the friends who came to wish him well.




People came from the Prairie Bible College community and also from the town community. And the lovely, magical thing about the evening is that -- for that evening -- we were all one community in support of someone we all care for.














Andy had wanted to make a speech that night; but he was too tired to be able to do so.



However, this week he emailed the gist of what he had planned on saying.


I am posting it under its own entry, called Andy's Speech.










Thanks to your generosity, Andy was able to cover all the medical bills he had incurred plus have enough to purchase refills of prescriptions.



And it also showed how people in our small community can pull together selflessly to impact someone's life. It took no legislation, no lobbying, no petitions. Just people who care and want to make a difference.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

- Nursery Rhymes -

Little Boy Blue, come blow on your horn
The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn
But where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
Is he under a haystack, fast asleep?

Little Boy Blue, come play us a tune
Of the yearning for peace in the soft summer moon
The gossamer silk of the dreams that you spun
Is ripped into threads when exposed to the sun.

From the depths of the song we learnt of your pain
Rejections and hurts that words couldn’t explain
The high notes hung trembling with teardrops unshed
A portent of thinly veiled darkness ahead.

Little Boy Blue, when you played on your horn
The darkness was light, the coldness was warm
Your melodies prisms, reflections of you –
Now who is to play for my Little Boy Blue?

July 4, 1990

Maynard Mark Schrag
November 16, 1961 - July 16, 2005

Wednesday, November 11, 2009







Lest We Forget ...


On this Remembrance Day Nilgiris was privileged to include among its guests three veterans.


Dixon Carter lied about his age and joined the theatre of World War II as a 17-year-old. "By the time they found out, I was already deployed!" he chuckled. "Aaah, they didn't care. What they needed was bodies, and I was ready to go!"

He fought for five years and then gave the next two years to the Reserves.

Then he joined the Army. He would spend the next 22 years serving Canada in a variety of places around the globe. And now, at 86 years of age, his bearing is still upright and his manner engaging and sprightly. He is "proud of our great country," proud that he had the "privilege and opportunity" to serve.



Kathleen "Sandy" (Sandever) Head and Gordon Head

What a tale these two have to tell!

Gordon served in World War II in the Navy. A North Atlantic Submarine Detector, he worked on ("or, more accurately, 'in'," he commented drily) a corvette.










Wikipedia says this about the corvettes used in WWII:

"The first modern corvettes were the Flower class (Royal Navy corvettes were named after flowers, and ships in Royal Canadian Navy service took the name of smaller Canadian cities and towns). Their chief duty was to protect convoys in the North Atlantic and on the routes from the UK to Murmansk carrying supplies to the Soviet Union.

The Flower-class corvette was originally designed for offshore patrol work, and was not ideal as an anti-submarine escort; they were really too short for open ocean work, too lightly armed for anti-aircraft defence, and little faster than the merchantmen they escorted, a particular problem given the faster German U-boat designs then emerging. They were very seaworthy and maneuverable, but living conditions for ocean voyages were appalling."

Sandy served in the Army as the secretary to Chief Medical Officer Lieutenant Colonel Henry. She remembers being driven from the barracks to the offices in an army truck -- they would have to ride in the back of the truck, standing up, hanging on for dear life. "The barracks weren't too bad," Kathleen reflected. "When I was a young girl I would read British boarding school books and I always wished I could have gone to a school like that. Then when I went into the Army and was in the barracks, in a way it was a lot like what I had pictured my boarding school would be!"

When I asked her to give me her name, she said, "It's Kathleen. Put that down. Although no one would know who that was; everyone calls me Sandy. Do you want to know why?" And of course I did.

It seems that the Army has a way of stripping you down to nothing but your last name. Kathleen was called "Sandever" all the time. Finally, she said to the girls working with her, and to her Colonel, "IF you have to call me by my last name, could you at least call me Sandy?" And Sandy it was, and has been ever since. But sometimes she misses Kathleen ...

I was talking with Lois about Kathleen and she called her mother, who used to work with Kathleen some years ago at Prairie. Dorothy had this to add: there was no faster shorthand than Sandy's. She became secretary to the founder of Prairie, L.E. Maxwell, who would preach his Sunday sermon to her first thing on Sunday morning. She would take it all down, then type it all up at lightning speed, and give it to him in time for him to go to the pulpit and preach it to the congregation! It is because of Sandy's unique talents that Prairie has the wonderful collection of Mr. Maxwell's sermons it does.

What an honour to have these three brave veterans grace the TH today! Thanks to them and thousands like them, we are still able to sing:

"...with glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free,
From far and wide, O Canada,

We stand on guard for thee ..."

The last, little-known verse of our National anthem is this:
"Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our Dominion in thy loving care;
Help us to find, O God, in thee
A lasting, rich reward,
As waiting for the better Day,
We ever stand on guard.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee."

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Ten things I love about you



  1. Somehow you managed to survive being the only boy planted in the middle of five sisters -- and you're still speaking to all of us!

  2. You are the hardest working person I know.

  3. You are passionate about your faith.

  4. You are devoted to your family, always seeking their best.

  5. You can walk into a room full of people standing awkwardly around, and within minutes you will have introduced yourself to each person and will have perfect strangers interacting most comfortably!

  6. You are, and always have been, generous with your time, your talents - which are many - and your treasures. There have been so many people who have been blessed through your anonymous working in the background.

  7. My Chev Cavalier: the Christmas Carswell deposited my paycheque in someone else's account and wouldn't pay me until they could reclaim the money from her -- and she was out of town! -- and I sold my Churchill books to pay for gas to come out to Youngstown in my beater car ... and you had this turquoise car waiting for me, bedecked with an enormous red bow. I still love my car ...

  8. You believed in my dream and created the tea house. More than that, you continue to support it and encourage it and me.

  9. You are so kind.

  10. You never give up.


Happy Birthday, Allan Patrick Ironside!

Sunday, November 1, 2009


Thanksgiving Day 31: Trick or treat

Spider webs and pumpkins and orange twinkly lights and flickering mysterious candles and candy. Lots of candy. Hallowe'en fell on a Saturday, so the TH could get dressed for the occasion. We had quite a few trick or treaters, and our own Kurt came dressed as the Fonz and handed out the candy to the intrepid soldiers and hobos and baby bunny rabbits and the basketball team who were away from home and had nowhere to trick or treat unless they could do a quick run in Three Hlls!

I thought of my Mum a lot today, and this is why: shortly after her funeral a lady spoke to us at the post office. She said that she had met my Mum only once. The previous Hallowe'en evening this lady was taking her two small grandchildren trick or treating, and they ended up on my Mum's front step. My Mum came out and was duly terrified and very complimentary of the costumes and chatted to the two children and their grandma. She gave them candy and they melted back into the night.

And that was it. But Mum left such a great impression on the lady that chilly October night that she felt compelled to come to Mum's funeral to convey her respects and gratitude for the way Mum had made her grandchildren feel important and special.

This is how my Mum lived her life. An only child herself, she always loved children and entered enthusiastically into their schemes and imaginings. She loved playing games and got right into character with an uncharacteristic uninhibitedness that endeared her to those who were participating with her. She was a fierce competitor but hated for children to have to lose so she would bargain away her rights in order that they would succeed.

Mum created costumes for us at our school Hebron's annual birthday celebrations, part of which involved all the students dressing up in costumes and having a parade. We invariably took a prize! She worked with "her" college students in their Christmas drama and musicals, and she brought Sunday school to life for anyone privileged to sit in her classes.

And so on this last day of my month of thankfulness, I want to salute Mum, who would have loved the TH today and who would have made everyone in it, costumed or not, feel like they had an important part in the drama of the evening.

It was truly a treat to be her child at times like this. The real trick for me is developing her happy facility for passing on her joy in the occasion, her joy for life itself, on to others.