>I have friends, old friends. The friends aren’t old, that would make me old, they are friends I have had for a long time, a life time. I saw one of the two friends I have had for most of my life this weekend…I was crazy happy. Crazy is relative in our home, remember? My friend, called and said she was coming in town and would stop by later, but would call first. She didn’t call first. She marched right in and said she didn’t call first because she knew I would do things to get ready. She is an old friend that knows me well. It is important and uneasy for me to have a friend that has seen it all and knows at least the sketchy details about every part of my life. It makes me vulnerable, she doesn’t just read the stories, she was part of many of the stories or had a front row seat for some of the stories. During the hardest years of my life she was just a kid, like me, unaware. As adults she has come to know more. She has been their in my sadness, confusion, and grief. She has painted my walls, held my babies, and we were in each other’s weddings. She is more my sister. A new thing I heard, that she said, my old friend gave me a new thought. She said she thought I was brave. She said tht out loud to one of the kids. I don’t know if I ever knew that. Since the cradle she has known me and I didn’t know she thought I was brave. I like that, I am honored. Brave isn’t a word I would use to describe myself, maybe I do things that seem to require bravery, that is because I often don’t think first of the risk…I just live, with all my heart. Maybe that is crazy not brave. I like Brave. She reminded me the last time that she was with me. My friend didn’t say”you were really loosing it”, she instead said “you were distraught,” it was at daddy’s funeral. When I was really loosing it a few years ago, she listened, maybe with question, but she never let me know. She brought our family cookies many years ago, some crispy and some soft, she is thoughtful like that. I named one of our daughters after her, I would be proud if she becomes a woman just like my friend. I looked at her daughter, I felt that I should look in the mirror and see myself 5 again, I was looking at my former playmate. Some of the places we spent time are torn down, others are unsafe. My friend still safe, always safe, just the way friends should be.
Find an old friend. Catch up, enjoy, they may need it, or maybe just enjoy it. Be encouraged.

>More often than asking us why we do what we do with our family, now a days we get asked how.
How did you get through 6 pregnancies? Well I only had 5 full term pregnancies (twins) and the way I got through them was thinking about what was to come….it wasn’t easy as some would believe, I worried constantly at times( I dealt with miscarriages between most of my babies), I was sick, and mean. I would fall asleep while reading aloud the children, just because I had all the children didn’t mean that being pregnant was easy, I chose to suffer is what some would say. How did you deliver them all? One at a time, some easy, some hard, some healthy, some not, some face up, most not, some after 3 days of pain, some after a few hours….one with an epidural the rest not. How do you keep up with the laundry? We don’t, the kids help and they are great and getting better, but we have more fun things to do. How do you afford them, very carefully and with some things that others find important, we give up for what we find important like Florida and Chicago trips, but it hasn’t always been this way….we have had to ask for help when they were all young (and never assume we won’t again) and we learned that God uses other things besides just a job (though Jobs are important). How do you deal with what people say about you? People are mean some times and critical, Donnie laughs and I cry ( a lot), then I laugh. What about dishes? We kill dishwashers so I listen to children complain while they wash. What about food? It is expensive and occasionally we have slim weeks, but again priorities…I will buy Nutty Butty bars and do with out cheerios if the mood strikes me and not one of us have been proclaimed nutritionally unsound….sometimes we eat what we don’t like(cabbage soup or egg sandwiches) and learn to like it till we have more money. I guess the big answer to how is this…..(DRUM ROLL PLEASE)….. I require life, I needed life, I wanted, longed for and believed that life would and could heal almost anything, that after many days of pain and upset, the lives of children, my children would change the world. This is how, this is how I fold more socks, use a credit card for groceries, buy a big ugly 12 passenger van that uses too much gas, stay in a neighborhood that isn’t always great, because the life affirming hope that children offer to the world everyday is worth it. I don’t and won’t take living out loud everyday for granted. It is a must, I require it like air. I want more ever day and am never satisfied. I have 6 children who are being raised the same way, wanting more life. I wanted to have as many vibrant, sweet, hopeful spirits as God would give me to make up for the pain and the loss and the untrust. It happened. Even when I don’t feel like it, life surrounds me. Not for everyone maybe, but just what was needed for this spirit of mine. I don’t do it because it is easy, it isn’t, I do it because my very soul required me to send hope to the universe and the hope I will send is the experience of life in our children. That is how.