Good luck on a stem

     I've received so much from friends and family in the past months. Gifts, cards, messages, miscellany kindnesses. Each one has touched me. It's almost a shock to the system to have folks from your present and past reach out to share how much they care about you -- or even remember you. There's this off-balance feeling of not being deserving. Could be discomfort with being the center of attention. I'm still figuring this out. If I've delayed sending timely thank yous, it's because I'm overwhelmed and still processing the extent of the kindnesses.  
      Ron brought me this gift the other day. He's a zen-like guy with a natural intelligence and some days his world revolves around his walk in the neighborhood. With the last of my chemo treatments, I've been in the need for external stimulation and had made a comment about how we needed to broaden our world a bit. Add some excitement. Something external, not internal. So he went for a walk and came back with the biggest four-leaf clover ever in his small patch of world. It's a good four-inches across.
  

     This is not new. Ron has always found four-leaf clovers and so have our girls. When they were little, they had a routine of lowering to their knees whenever they'd spot patches of green surrounding trees and poles. More times than not, they came up grinning with good luck on a stem.
     Me, I've never found a four leaf clover. Could be I never really searched. Or have I simply missed them all along?