I was reading the paper this morning about a guy I knew when he was eight years old. He was Brenda Somebody's boy friend and I thought I could not live without him. He was adorable. Brenda and I had been good friends until then. Looking at the picture of this short, fat, bald man did not remind me of the boy who could twirl a basket ball on his finger. I remember running into him a few years ago when he was working on divorce number 4. He said I had a sweet wiggle in my walk. I knew then he had problems with his eyes. If he does not know when someone's hip implant is popping in and out he is in trouble. I wonder how many other things I can think of that I have learned to live without? Turns out there are quite a few.

I learned to live without a mink coat, that blue dress hanging in Neiman's window. I learned to live without a diamond too big to wear on a ring. I learned to live without coming in first at anything. I learned to live without giving up when things got tough. I learned to live without being unkind just because I could. I learned to live without everyone agreeing with me. For a period of time I learned to live without my eyesight and got it back. Ooh, what a wonderful lesson that blessing that was. I lost my hearing for a while and a similar lesson blessing. I learned to live without another person in the house.

If I have learned to live without so many things, what do I treasure most? Love. Love for my fellow man, animals (great and small), sunrises and sunsets, the smell of honeysuckle, roses, and lavender. I treasure the sweet taste of honey and homemade bread. I treasure how all has touched my heart.

We humans spend our entire lifetimes getting ready to be on our own, in our own home, etc. We go to school to get the education to build a career that will build our homes. When we get it all just right. When it is full of all the things we cannot live without... we leave it. When something happens to confine us to that environment we built for ourselves we sit and think about all the things outside that home... we cannot live without. Treasures of the heart cannot be lost or stolen. Those are the things one cannot live without.

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