I woke up at 3:30am.
I reached over to check the time on my phone.
In my sleepiness, I hit the Instagram icon and a cooking video started to play.
I quickly tried to turn the video off so it wouldn’t wake up my husband.

Suddenly, I saw that I had inadvertently dialed the emergency SOS on my phone.
I heard a voice.
In my half awake state, I thought it was dialing 911.
I heard the dial sound and I heard a voice.

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What do you do in the midst of war?
What do you do if the war is not on your doorstep?
War kills, destroys, and dismisses human life as expendable.
War is not a person, but a person or people are behind war.

What do you do?
I have been struggling as I see images and read the news.
I have been sad about the people who are being displaced and who are losing everything.
I have been amazed at the bravery and determination of unlikely heroes.

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On top of my Hoosier cabinet, there are wooden blocks that spell a word.
The word is, BELIEVE.
I thought about those blocks as I was sitting at the kitchen table.
I don’t remember where I even purchased them; they seem to have been around forever.

Believe in what?
What is it you believe in at Christmas time?
The object of your belief tells you a lot about yourself.
The object of your belief tells you a lot about your worldview.

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It always happened the first weekend of December.
We would hear the sirens in the distance.
The first time I heard them, I thought there was an emergency.
I was assured by a neighbor that the sirens were for a good reason.

We were living in our first house.
We had two daughters; one was a toddler and the other was an infant.
The older one was just the age to appreciate what was happening.
Santa was coming to visit on the back of a firetruck.

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I was meeting three friends for lunch.
I went to grade school and high school with two of those friends.
We all met the other friend in high school.
So many memories are packed into our friendship.

The sign of a good friendship is being able to start right where you left off.
No need to explain or go back to chapter one.
Chapters of our lives have been shared along the way.
No need to see each other all the time, but when we do plan our visit, it’s as if we never left.

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The fog was thick as I started out on my morning walk.
I had gotten an alert on my phone, warning drivers of limited visibility.
I was not driving, I was walking.
I knew these roads.

I set out.
Everything looked different.
Tinges of autumn color were peeking through the fog.
Nothing looked familiar to me.

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The debris is all over my driveway.
The debris is all over the road when I go on my morning walk.
There is discoloration.
Long sticks are scattered about.

I hear them falling all throughout the day.
I know that anyone standing underneath would get a lump on their head.
They make a popping sound as I drive over them with my car.
Something so beautiful can be so messy.

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I had to run to Walmart.
I could go to one of two stores.
I chose the one with the shorter distance.
I chose the store taking country roads rather than the one where traffic lights abound.

I just had to make a quick trip inside.
I knew that I would be in and out.
I finished, got back in my car, and began to drive out of the parking lot.
I was on the road that runs perpendicular to the parking lanes.

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It was a family weekend.
We were celebrating the second birthday of our granddaughter.
Her birthday was actually a month ago.
Her other grandparents live across the country and we wanted to celebrate with them.

Most of my daughter-in-love’s extended family lives in the Annapolis area.
That is where my oldest son and his wife stepped in with a wonderful suggestion.
They live in northern Virginia.
They kindly offered to host the birthday party for their little niece.

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My two-year-old granddaughter was here over the weekend.
She stayed a few more days, which gave her Mommy and Daddy some time to themselves.
I brought her back home.
She loved riding in Grandma’s car.

She had her cup of milk in the cup holder of her car seat.
She had a little container of goldfish in the other cup holder.
I put on her favorite music, which made her smile.
I could see her in my rear view mirror.

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