Saying yes

My mom liked funny dates; things like October 4, she would say, '10-4, good buddy', not oddly shaped dried figs or having dinner with a comedian. Today's date is all ones and it got me thinking about all of the ones in my life. The one life that we get, of which I'm reminded every Sunday is 'a wild and precious life'. The one mom we get, the one marriage I have, the one boy and the one girl. Sometimes our choices leave us with one alternative. Sometimes our inability to make one choice leave us with no alternatives.

While waxing poetic about this post over the past few hours, I've mostly thought about the choices that I'm so glad I made and most of them involved saying yes to something. Sometimes it was a terrible idea to say yes. I stand there wondering how exactly I got myself into such a spot. Sometimes it's even worse than I could have imagined.

But, then, sometimes, when I'm standing there, I can't imagine what I did right to be able to say yes to so many things and have so many people say yes to me. So thank you. Whether it's something seemingly simple, like 'can we dig up all the bushes in front of the house and plant tomatoes and sunflowers?' or something complicated and hard like 'will you love me as long as we both shall live?', I'm so glad that all of you have said yes, and let me say yes.

Mostly I'm glad because all of that allowed me to say yes to Suzy when she wanted to pick all the 'tomateys' off the vines as I pulled them out of the ground (leaving a ridiculous patch of dirt in front of the house). And I didn't even say no as she ran around the yard tossing the sweet bites of heaven on the grass for the skunks to eat.


But I did say, no, I couldn't help her if the skunks didn't come when she called.

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