S - S - S - S - S - S

Sisters - Just have to say my sister is fantastic. Her name is Belinda and she's younger than me, which naturally makes me more mature than her. This isn't about me though, it's about her. Right? Anyway, she desires to be a good wife and mom and works toward those goals. She is way more girly than I'll ever be, but she's not prissy. She's crafty and artistic. She married her high school sweetheart and they've been married ten years. She desires to grow closer to God and works toward that goal. She has moved a gazillion times since graduating from high school. She lives in the mountains of the Philippines. She's honest. She can speak Tala Andig and used to speak Cebuano (until the Tala Andig took over). She's funny. I could go on, but I have two more "S" things to write about and only so much free time in my day. One more thing though. She introduced me to cracker nuts. That's too important to leave out.

Sleepless - When I turned the computer on Wednesday morning I realized it hadn't been shut down properly the last time it was used. Weird. Even weirder was that there were kid games on the screen. I knew for a fact that I hadn't been playing kid games before going to bed the previous night. A bit later Silas woke up. The first thing he said was "I woke up and played games while everyone was sleeping. It was 1:01 on the microwave clock when I woke up. I played for a while, then I went back to bed. It was all in the middle of the night." Fabulous. Another insomniac in the family.

Song - I have a friend, Susan, on the SL forums whose husband is in the music business. Just after Silas drowned she told me that his drowning was the inspiration for some lyrics that she and her husband had composed. Well, they were finally able to share the song. Before I link you to the song, let me share what Susan posted a couple days ago. For those unfamiliar with internet shorthand, "dh" means "dear husband". And "The Big Bison" is Susan's online nickname for her husband.

Here's the song the Big Bison and I wrote for Bethany! Well, OK, we didn't actually write it for Bethany. But something that happened to her inspired it.

Here's the back story. Dh asked me to help him write 4 songs he was commissioned to write for a music house in town. The way this works is that periodically, the music house puts out CDs of music that radio and TV stations and advertisers can license music from. You might here it as background music for a commercial on TV. They commissioned him to write 4 "modern folk songs" (whatever those might be) on any subject he desired.

So, he started bugging me to give him some ideas, and I turned to YOU ladies, because on these forums you certainly find a sampling of life in all its aspects: hopes, dreams, tragedies - topics ranging anywhere from the mundane to the glorious. (And may I say, that very often, the glorious is found in the midst of the mundane. Which sounds like an idea for another song.)

So, at about the time that he was bugging me to come up with some ideas, Bethany's son Silas almost drowned. What a shocking thing that was!!! One moment they were in the midst of a relaxed family get-together, and the next, the unthinkable had happened.

It took my breath away to read about it, and I prayed earnestly for Bethany and Silas and all the W's. And it got me to thinking about the concept of "life". How fleeting, how fragile, yet how tenacious and determined is our very breath, our very heartbeat. So, I jotted down some phrases for the Big Bison, and he did the rest.

And here is the song. It is just audio, no visual, and is about two minutes long. Enjoy!