Something Else Worth Remembering

As part of the follow-up to the recent multi-day Comcast outage, I've been reviewing the contents of the blog and found a few draft posts that I thought were actually published. Most of them are unlikely to ever see the light of day (Dude, that's why they give you that pop-up "delete" link!) but a few will show up later on after I've rewritten them. However, the most recent of the unpublished drafts is a complete post that I really did intend to publish. Although it's now 2-1/2 months old it says some things I still want to say -- so I'm publishing it now, verbatim, as originally written.  Assuming my Internet connection doesn't "go away" of its own accord again, I'll be posting more current info & photos soon... but please read what I intended to post back in early July.

---

Note to New Visitors: If you're looking for my post about Teresa Bartlinski, it's the one from July 2nd. Ann Bartlinski has also posted it to her blog, and I've left the link on the Pray for Teresa B. group on Facebook.   Now that I know what I wrote is OK with Ann & Ed, I plan to leave the post here on my blog both as a memorial to a very(!) special little girl and as a reminder for yours truly to review as needed to keep things in the proper perspective.

I want to thank everyone who's read my post about Teresa Bartlinski for all the wonderful comments. All I did was put my feelings, perhaps clumsily, into words. She was (as AJ and I and our folks have been saying to each other repeatedly for the past day) a very special little girl and the kind of human being there are far too few of in this world.

I've seen an astonishing jump in the readership of this blog, and I hope that anyone who chooses to keep visiting isn't disappointed by future posts; I'm not always the most erudite writer, and the majority of my posts are quite a bit more prosaic and less philosophical... but you are all very welcome to follow along on the adventure of the Pipsqueak's life (interrupted by the occasional philosophical treatise or even more occasional plain ol' rant).

While looking at the Blogger stats, I noticed that while a number of my more recent posts are getting a lot of hits, one in particular from this past April just doesn't seem to be attracting much attention... but I think it ties in well with some of what I've been seeing in the extended adoption community for the past few days. It's titled, "No Smoke or Mirrors Required" -- note that it was composed during the wee hours of the morning so please forgive any grammatical oddities or stilted/cliched presentation of ideas.   (As an added bonus, it's short... at least in terms of my usual ramblings!)

And remember -- as I once told a friend on a particularly dark day in September 2001 -- always remember to tell someone you love that you love them, because you never know when you'll get another chance.

Thank you again, Ann, for such a gracious acceptance of my post in your family's time of pain. Refuah Shlemah. Thank you again, Teresa, for the amazing example you have set for us all. And thank you, my beloved niece, for seeing me as such a special person; you've set the bar high, and I'll be a much better person for even just trying to live up to your expectations.