The things that brought me the most comfort now were too small to list. Raspberries in cream. Sparrows with cocked heads. Shadows of bare limbs making for sidewalk filigrees. Roses past their prime with their petals loose about them. The shouts of children at play in the neighborhood, Ginger Rogers on the black-and-white screen.

There I was, waiting, afraid I’d never experience the kind of joy yet to come, but hoping for it just the same.

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.

I would make an anonymous call and say, this is someone who cares, do you know what kind of children you have?

This is one rule about mixing boys and girls: that a date always comes first.

If I were to draw on a paper what gym does for me, I would make one dot and then I would erase it.