PUT  YOUR  TWO  CENTS  IN

Take out your wallet. Put your
two cents in. Buy the lemonade.

Say, “Keep the change, Kid!” 

Watch the kid’s eyes - as well as

the beggar in the doorway. 

Hear the music. Notice what 
happens when people are nice 
to each other in the plaza, 

in traffic and in the parking lot.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August 16, 2019

SATURDAY  WEDDINGS

It’s Friday evening and thousands 

of couples meet to practice for their 

wedding and their marriage on the 

morrow. They meet in church or

chapel - temple or beach - mountain 

or river - and they go through the 

motions practicing  for tomorrow. 

And each time as priest, I pray for 

them - and I think of Grace and
Joseph Mary Plunkett -  who had 

15 minutes of marriage - 15 minutes - 

and I pray that their love - their 

vows - their promises - their dreams 

for  a lifetime last - last - last - last …. 

And then the next day, at their 

wedding ceremony,  I pray 

for them and all the couples 

present that they will realize 

and remember they only have 

so many minutes left, filled 

with all the graces God gives us. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August 16, 2019

Thought for the Day:

 MY  DAUGHTER 

My daughter died on a warm day in July. I'm not sure exactly which day, or even that "she" was a "she" at all, if you want to be really specific. At nine and a half weeks, the organs that determined these things weren't fully formed, much less detectable by sonogram. And even though I had seen pictures on the Internet of nine-and-a-­half-week-old fetuses, the doctor refused to speak in any concrete terms. We did not say the word baby. Instead, she referred to the painful night of bleeding, cramps, and tears as the "passing of cells and tissues.”

I suppose these words, cells and tissues, were what made it easier for people to say things like "You can have more" and "Things happen for a reason.”  They did not know that in my imagina­tion she had dark hair and porcelain skin dotted with freckles like her dad. We made up silly songs together, and she danced around the house in pink tutus and patent leather shoes. She drew pictures of bright yellow suns and green grass that I had already hung up on my fridge. She would fall asleep on the giant paws of my Saint Bernard, her guardian who lovingly endured all manner of bows and barrettes fastened to his reddish brown fur. She was an athlete; she was an artist; she was my first child. She had yet to draw her first breath in this world, but she was very much alive. She even had a name.

There was no funeral, no memorial marking, a gravesite, because there was no burial. Barely anyone acknowledged that she was even gone. It felt strange mourning for someone whom no one else seemed to know existed, much less felt their absence when they were gone. Some­one who changed the direction of my life so profoundly without ever uttering a single word had left this world as unremarkably as she had entered it.

I often wonder the purpose of a life that lived for only nine weeks, just long enough to make me sick at the smell of chicken and want to lie on the couch all day. I grapple daily with the notion that all things have a purpose in a divine plan, when things feel anything but carefully designed. But I do know that this baby made me a mom for the first time, if only briefly.  And no amount of time will change that.

—   Sarah Schaffner is a freelance writer and editor living in Baltimore.

August 15, 2015

GOING  BY  GRAVEYARDS

Driving through Annapolis,

heading away from downtown,

when I’m on West Street,

when I’m going by the 3 cemeteries there -

I feel the difference between them

and  McDonalds and car dealerships.

I feel the heaviness  of  life gone by -

family loss - the last page of a book.

Those gravestones weigh me down

like the dead being tossed overboard

at sea with stones tied around the corpse.

But life goes on for me - till I’m buried

where I’m buried …. In the meanwhile

I have many more pages to be written,

many more stories to be part of …. I hope.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

August  15, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a  second-rate  version of someone else.” 

Judy Garland told that 

to her daughter Liza Minelli. 

Annapolis Capital, B. 5,

 January 1, 2019

August 14, 2019

Thought for today: 

“Yosemite Valley, to  me,  is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.”  

Ansel Adams, 

The Portfolios 

of Ansel Adams, 

NY Graphic Society/ 

Little Brown, 1981

August 14, 2019

A  MOMENT  OF  TIME

Think about it ….

To think about the times 

of one’s life means I can 

stop and look at the times 

I’ve had - sort of like taking 

a photo - and then pointing 

at a picture to ourselves 

and if it’s amazing, to say, 

“Hey look at this picture.” 

Life comes, a moment at a time…. 

Think about it …. 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019
Picture: With Gloria Goldberger
a short time before she died of cancer.
She and her husband, Marty,
were great friends of my brother Billy
and his wife, Joanne.