i am rich

And that assessment is not in comparison to anybody.  I just am.  Period.

I have one brother whom I adore. Always have. After staying single for 40 years, he got married about four years age to the one who was born to be in our family.

My dad died 18 years ago and my mom has since devoted her life to my brother and me and my family.

We're tight.

But getting married and building a home and raising a family and pastoring a church and homeschooling and traveling extensively take an amazing amount of time and energy and many times our connections are limited to once a month suppers or days where it's just phone conversations.  My mom lives 8/10s of a mile from my house and my brother only lives about 3 miles, but we can go days...weeks?...without seeing each other.

That is just flat out wrong.

So, Mardi Gras gave my brother a day off this past Tuesday and he gifted it to my mom and me.  Just the three of us.  From can until can't, doing what we wanted, rambling around the countryside.

A dear friend on Facebook knows us all too well and asked what we talked about all day.  As I typed my response to her, I was reminded again that few people experience this much love in their life and I am grateful.

My response:

Ha!  I KNEW you wanted to come! :-)


We talked about "Radical" (Kenny's reading that) and "Slave" (I just finished) and "Splashdown" (John Wolfram's book).


And we talked about heaven and then we talked about where the dead are.  Lots of opinion on that one.


Then we talked about how dead outlet malls are getting and how stupid Mardi Gras is and how thankful we are we were doing what we were doing. (several times).


Then we looked for the old Indian Creek swimming hole and almost found it and then got out and took pics of a forgotten creek by Mom's old homeplace in the rain.

And they had Shipley's but I didn't cause I'm good.


And a couple of other things that I won't put on Facebook.


And then we had Mexican food, and rode the back roads all day til dark.


And it was a perfectly fabulous day.


I am rich.

If you have love in your life, you are rich.