My youngest son instant-messaged from Iraq this morning to report that he'd returned to base from his latest mission. Suddenly I can breathe again. It's a great feeling.

I remember when I had a life of my own. In fact, I remembered it vividly, just this morning. (Does everyone have those little flashes of the past that seem to come from nowhere and are as vivid as the moment they happened?) Anyway, I saw myself pulling into the driveway after driving home from BYU in a snowstorm. My grandmother was sitting at the window with her nose pressed to the glass.

She'd been sitting there for hours. Waiting.

When I walked in she hugged me. A little later, but still through tears, she said, "I remember when I had a life of my own!"

I had no idea what she was talking about. She had a wonderful life! Even in her eighties she was an active professional artist of some renown. In the excitement of my homecoming I forgot entirely about what she said, but I remembered it today. And finally I understood.

My grandmother was wise. On that day so many years ago my life was my own. Like most young, young adults, I was totally ego-centric. That the world didn't revolve around me hadn't yet entered my mind. It's different now, of course. My life isn't my own anymore. It's been fractured into a dozen pieces, probably more: my husband, my children, my parents, and others who are near and dear. Wherever they go and whatever they do, a part of me goes with them. Another part sits here with my nose pressed to the cold glass of uncertainty, waiting to hear that they're safe. Well. Happy. Coming home.

I'm sure my grandmother understands. Do you suppose she has her nose pressed to some heavenly glass even now -- waiting and praying and urging her family to come eventually back into her arms?

Yeah, I think so too.

Stars have been on my mind all week -- ever since the meteor shower, I guess. Today on the Frog Blog John Governale of www.exceedinglycurious.com enthralled me with his musings (and amazing calculations!) on the vastness of the cosmos. Absolutely fascinating! Don't miss it!

Then, when I was visiting his site, (a place I could pass the whole day, by the way) I came upon a place on the web where you can pull up a picture of your very own Birth Star! What a great gift, John. Thanks!

http://outreach.jach.hawaii.edu/birthstars/year.php

I spent the better part of last night lying outside on the front lawn. This morning I am bug-bitten and unbelievably stiff, but happy. I can honestly report that I ran out of wishes long before the Perseid Meteor Shower ran out of falling stars.As a child, there were only two nights of the year I anticipated more than the Perseid Shower: Halloween and Christmas. As an adult, stargazing may have edged out them both.

Perhaps my fondest childhood memories are of the nights I stargazed with my Dad and listened to his stories, theories, and wildest dreams. He was a big fan of all things science and science fiction, so I was thoroughly indoctrinated in both the wondrous and the weird. When I was five or six, my father confided that when he was my age he prayed every night that he would live to see the year 2000. That impressed me so much that, knowing his prayerful years were mostly behind him, I took up the task. When in 1997 a specialist told him he had only six months to live, I cried more for the loss of his dream than the loss of his life. We took my father into our home and I prayed a little harder. He passed away in August of 2000. Never tell me prayers aren't heard and answered, even when it takes a miracle or six.

As I looked up into the heavens last night, I wondered where my father was right then. I mean, I know where he is in theory, but the prophets who have seen the setting have been rather vague when it comes to describing the landscape. I used up most of my wishes hoping he could still look up at stars in humility and wonder. While I know many of our questions are answered when we move beyond the veil, I hope some of the mysteries yet remain.

After all, I learned long ago in the August nights of my youth that oftentimes the greatest joy and satisfaction in life lie in the wonder of it all!

I stole the title for the post (and most of the post!) from a radio ad being run now by our local feed store. I hate to use another writer's words without attribution, but since it's also circulating cyberspace without a name, and I have no idea who wrote it, I have little choice.

Every time I read or hear this I choke up a little. I love my dog. If everybody had her heart and soul the world would be a marvelous place. Things I learn from her:

When a loved one comes home, always run to greet them.

Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, lay on your back on the grass. On hot days, drink lots of water and rest under a shady tree.

When you're happy, dance around.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you're not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

I have a new computer! This has brought all kinds of joy into my life, but one of the best perks is that now I can finally access the funnest feature on my own web site. It's a music video by Ted Sowards called Some Postman (Love Letters). To find it go to the Curiosity Shop and scroll down until you see the JSM logo. Click on the "Download Some Postman here." (Ignore the typo, please. I didn't notice it myself until this moment, and I hate to bug my overworked web maven yet again today!) Don't miss the outtakes and blooper reel because they're almost as good as the video.

I guarantee you'll LOVE it or double your money back. (It's FREE!)

As a child, I loved to jump rope. I loved to play jacks. Hide and seek? I was so there! (Especially if I could find a really good place to hide and thus pass all of recess reading a book.) I could even get enthused about an occasional game of tether ball or hopscotch, but I hated tag. Hated it. The best thing about junior high was that there was no recess and, hence, no games of tag. Now that we're all supposedly grown up, it's started again. I'd go hide in the rain gutter like I used to, but I do like the new cyber-versions a little better -- possibly because nobody chases me down and slugs me in the arm to get me to play. Also, some of them are interesting. (Unfortunately for you, this isn't one of them. Blame Jeff Savage. Or whoever tagged him. Or whoever thought of this in the first place.)

The game:

1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday without the year:

March 28 I might as well include the year. Everybody with access to a computer can find out I'm a mere eleven months away from the big 5-0. Those Librarians of Congress are such blabbermouths. (Is this the deep, dark secret you were hoping for, Jeff?)

2. List 3 events that occurred that day:

37 AD -- Roman Emperor Caligula accepts title of Principate from the Senate. I love the name Caligula. I'm thinking of renaming the cat. Goodness knows he doesn't answer to the name he has now.

1802 -- Heinrich Wilhelm Matthaus Olbers discovers 2 Pallas, the second asteroid known to man. The first was Ceres, but Wikipedia won't tell me who discovered it or when. I've been bidding on pieces of stellar rock on Ebay because my husband mentioned he's always wanted a piece of space debris. As if we don't have enough Earth rocks in the backyard. My theory is that a planet is a planet, but I love the guy so I keep bidding. If anything hits your house and you want to sell a piece, let me know!

1920 -- ''The Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak of 1920'' occurs. What a title! More than thirty-eight tornados hit the Midwest & Deep South. My mother grew up in Kansas so I've always loved tornados. In theory, that is. I've never met one in person, though I came close once along the Kansas/Nebraska border. It veered off course and missed me by a country mile. I'm just not lucky when it comes to being pulverized by deadly twisters.

3. List 2 important birthdays:

1613 -- Xiaozhuangwen Grand Empress Dowager This is the only name I came across that's even better than Caligula. I wish I could use it for the other cat, but I'd never be able to spell it on a vet form. Maybe the next goldfish . . .

1895 & 1899 -- Spencer W. Kimball & Harold B. Lee. I'll bet it's the only birthday shared by two prophets, but I'm way too lazy to look it up. (Besides, where would I look up Isaiah's birthday, anyway?)

4. List 1 death: 1979 -- Emmett Kelley, American Clown I read a biography on Kelley once and have always wanted to write a novel based loosely on his life. Circuses, and particularly clowns, fascinate me!

5. List 1 holiday or observance:

Not a dang thing is observed on March 28. This leaves us all free to celebrate my birthday. I shall expect many more cards and gifts next year.

Tag other Bloggers: Let's see . . . I tag Stephanie Black at www.stephanieblack.org. (I'm not sure why she's a dot org. Probably when you have as many fans as she does, you have to be better organized than the rest of us), Sariah Wilson, Kristy C., Scott B. (assuming he's still blogging -- or alive, for that matter) and Marnie Pehrson. I'd tag Betsy Green again but she might send Miss Eugenia to give me a lesson in manners.

My new book comes out this week. You'd think that with it being the eighth I've published the novelty might have worn off, but it hasn't! I'm just as excited to open the box containing Ghost of a Chance as I was when I got The Heart Has It's Reasons seven-and-a-half years ago. I've often heard authors compare holding their first book with welcoming a new baby. As a mother of four, I can assure you it's not that incredible -- but it's marvelous just the same.

I still can't quite believe I've been published. I once read an essay by Sir James Barrie (the author of Peter Pan and other great works) wherein he described receiving a copy of Auld Licht Idyls. He wrote: "For several days after my first book was published, I carried it around in my pocket and took surreptitious peeks at it to make sure the ink had not faded." That's exactly how I feel!

For the next few days I'll be the one carrying around a receiving blanket in which is swaddled a newborn baby book with a bright pink cover and grinning mariachi skull. (I love the cover, by the way. It was designed by Jessica Warner who is undoubtedly the best in the business! It's worth all the angst of writing just to receive one of her beautiful works of art to hang on my wall.) The best thing about my "new baby" is that it won't keep me up nights crying. But I might. I'm that excited -- and grateful.

The tag line of my about-to-be-released book, Ghost of a Chance, is: True love is like a ghost. Many people believe in both, but few find either. I don't remember where I first read that line, but I believe it.

For the record, I didn't drag my husband to the cemetery to hunt for ghosts. (Although graveyards are the most common site for portal hauntings; more about that in a later blog.) We went there looking for a site for a unique author photo for this website. The old Citizen's Cemetery has long been one of my favorites. (Everybody has a favorite graveyard, right?) Buried therein are the remains of men who served as Rough Riders with Teddy Roosevelt, and women who served . . . something in the Bird Cage saloon on Whiskey Row back when Doc Holladay was a regular.

Anyway, what better place for a photo shoot? Unfortunately, the cemetery's high, wrought iron gates are closed and locked at dusk. We had to park in one of the less-desirable parts of town and ignore the drunken party that was going on nearby. (We also said a quick prayer that our hubcaps -- and the car to which they were attached -- would still be there when we returned.) We then lowered ourselves over a rock wall and into the graveyard. Thanks to the miracle of gravity, this wasn't too difficult, even for a middle-aged novelist and her CPA husband.

For about an hour, I led my eternal companion from one old sepulchre to the next (and the next and the next and the next) in search of the perfect spot in which to be photographed. While I graciously carried the digital camera, he carried my 50-lb antique typewriter. It was cold, almost-dark, and suitably spooky, even for me.

By the time we had enough pictures to make me happy, we'd attracted the attention of several drunks and one police officer -- but no ghosts. (Nor did an orb show up on our pictures, darn it.) My husband boosted me back over the wall, handed up the typewriter, considered the wall's height and his blood pressure, and then sat down to wait for the cemetery's gate to open or for heaven's trump to sound, whichever came first. No, seriously, he scaled a crumbling pile of rocks that would have given Spider-Man second thoughts.

I probably don't have to tell you that Gary would have rather been home watching football and rooting for ASU. (Heck, he'd have rather been at a dentist's office having a root canal.) Nor do I need to tell you that I've found true love. You can judge that for yourself.

But I'm still looking for a ghost. Really. I am. More about that hunt next week.

If I had back every dish I've dropped and broken in the last decade I could invite Wyoming over for a sit-down dinner. (I chose a sparsely populated state so you wouldn't think I'm exaggerating.) I'm too stubborn to switch to paper dinnerware, but if Noritake introduces a line of Blue Willow in rubber I'll be first in line at Dillards.

Breaking dishes isn't the only thing I do routinely. I also trip over things left carelessly lying around the house--like loose threads and pet dander. I type yrkerl in a blog or a book and don't notice that the word is Martian until somebody points it out to me. I say things like, "Someday, you'll go to the aardvark to make sacred covenants." I wish I were making that last one up, but I'm not. I also wish I hadn't been speaking to Young Women at the time, but I was. No, I wasn't touting a new anthropomorphic religion, it was just a random word my brain sent to my mouth when my heart was thinking temple. All things considered, it could have been worse.

I do all this--and ever so much more--because I have multiple sclerosis. It's a disease that's all in my head. No, really. It is. Little lesions, which in my case are on the upper part of my spinal cord, play havoc with the neurological signals my mind sends to various and sundry parts of my body. I think "temple" and say "aardvark." I step on a piece of glass and never know I've cut my foot until I see a trail of bloody footprints across the carpet. I tell a sister in my ward at ten in the morning that of course I can drive her to the doctor at eleven, but by 10:03 I've forgotten that she called. (That sister still isn't speaking to me, by the way.) The memory thing (or lack thereof) is probably the worst. While I can remember how fast Aquaman swims (100 mph), I often can't remember the names of my four children. (Scott, Jake, Matt and, um, Edgar. No, Edgar's the turtle. Amy. Or is that the chicken? Give me a minute. It will come to me. I've known that girl nineteen years now.) Or maybe the worst is to never know until I wake up in the morning what the symptom du jour will be. Will I be able to walk? See? Understand the words on my computer monitor? Pick up the salt shaker by the third try? MS isn't a fun affliction exactly, but it sure is interesting.

I can scarcely believe I'm sharing this today with anybody with an Internet connection and a rudimentary understanding of the English language. Mostly I'm still in denial. For sure I don't like anybody outside my family to know I have MS. Part of this is pride, of course, but part is self-preservation. You wouldn't believe how many "cures" there are out there for an incurable disease--aside from the treatment my neurologist recommends, I mean. (His involves needles. Stuck in my stomach. Every day. Ick.) But according to one friend, all I really have to do is drink Perky Potion. It's an amazing concoction of vitamins, minerals, papaya juice, and shoe polish that you can get for a mere $150 an ounce and, in my case, keep down for about three minutes. As bad as it is, I do prefer it to the miracle remedy offered by a former home teacher. This guy insisted that two dozen bee stings a day for sixteen weeks would fix me right up. Gee, as fun as that sounds, I think I'll stick with my neurologist. At least his way involves only one sting--and no insects. I've heard lots more ideas, but I'm running out of space and I suspect you're running out of attention span.

What brought this to mind was a conversation I had at church last week with a wonderful guy who's at about the same place I am in the progression of the disease. We compared notes and, frankly, teared up a little at first because we're both getting worse than we ever thought we would. But then he said, "You know, one day last week I couldn't remember the name of our cat." I said, "I got in the car, drove into town, then couldn't remember what I'd gone there for." (I haven't told my husband this, by the way. Good thing he doesn't read my blog or he'd take away my car keys. You are all hereby sworn to secrecy.) The point is that by the end of the conversation we were both laughing so hard our sides would have hurt except that our nerves misfire so badly that my right toe hurt and his left elbow itched. It's a better week because of him. A better life, even. Sure, I still forget. I still break things--and one of these days that "thing" will probably be my neck--but I still laugh, too.

I admire Teri Garr for saying, "Sure I have MS, but I have lots of other things too." So do I. One of the things I have the most of is hope. Someday I will walk into my aardvark's office and he'll have a real cow. I mean cure. In the meantime, I just have to remember to buy more dishes the next time I'm in town with my daughter Whatshername.

A dear friend who recently returned from a mission wrote: While I was in New York we went to a Chinese place and I got a fortune that said, "Travel this year will give you a new perspective on life." I laughed, but kept the fortune. I really hate that we can't see the end result of the things we do now. I want to know what perspective I've gained. Mom says I'm different, but I feel the same. So what changed? What was the purpose of me going on a mission? Was it for me to change the world or for the world, and God, to change me?

Like Chilly, the talented, inspired young woman who wrote those words, I also wonder. Mostly I wonder about writing. Have I been granted the wondrous opportunity to write and publish because of what I have to give or because it will open windows to what I need to receive? In my case, there's little doubt it's that second thing. I get so much. Near the top of the list, I get letters. A lot of letters, mostly from young women. I always answer, sometimes more than once. Sometimes more than a dozen times. I've been answering some for so long now that I've received wedding invitations and birth announcements from women who were Beehives or Mia Maids when we first started corresponding. It is one of the greatest marvels--and joys--in my life. If these friendships were all I ever gained from writing, I would consider myself richly blessed.

But I get more. Just last week, for instance, I got a moving lesson in humility. One of the many online sites that encourage book reviews had a post from someone who said she was sorry to say it, but "This Just In" is the worst book ever published in this--or any--market. (Side note: She didn't sound sorry. She sounded more like she wished she could turn my dog over to those people who like pit bulls about as much as Puritans like witches.) Despite the fact that there were six positive reviews alongside the negative, guess which one I've memorized? (Why am I like that? And while we're on the subject, somebody please tell me I'm not the only one who is!) Anyway, it affected me so much I couldn't look at the newly-edited book Angela had sent back for my review. Just thinking about publishing another novel made me cringe. I mean, "Ghost of a Chance" is probably as bad as "TJI." It might be worse. Why jeopardize a rainforest - or, in the case of my print runs, a couple of scraggly pine trees - when the world has enough inanity (and to spare) already?

As it turns out, I found the answer to that question in another part of Chilly's letter. She told a story about being on Temple Square with President Monson and a little boy. In her words: I was bemoaning the fact that I have to give a talk in church on Sunday and President Monson said when he was about twelve he had to give a two-minute talk in church and wanted his dad to write it. His dad told him no, he had to do it himself, but to write about something he liked. One thing Pres. Monson likes is birds. So he went downtown to the Seagull Monument on Temple Square. He said he was looking in the water that surrounds the statue and saw lots of coins that people had thrown in to make wishes. He thought to himself that those coins weren't doing anyone any good and a boy could certainly use them. He then said he didn't take them. K.J., the little boy with us, volunteered, "Because you didn't want to destroy anyone's hopes!" It was so funny! As if taking coins from a pool destroys people's wishes. Maybe it does. That would be a good lesson -- not to steal from wishing wells/fountains/reflecting pools.

I think my words are like those coins. They really aren't doing anybody any good, and yet I've tossed them out into the world's reflecting pool with the best of intentions. They're my way of wishing well to anyone and everyone who happens upon them. With every book I write I wish that good could always triumph over evil. I wish that everyone could live happily ever after. At the very least, I wish we all would laugh more than we cry and get up one more time than we fall down.

I know it's a lot to wish for. Nevertheless, I have a whole handful of coins left to me and I'm going to keep tossing them into that pool just as long as I can lift my arm. I'll probably never, as Washington Irving said, contribute a mite to the wisdom and knowledge of the world, but I can live with that. In fact, I can rejoice in it if I let go the pressure to impress and replace it with a deep appreciation for the myriad of blessings I receive. Wherever I look, the tender mercies of God sparkle before me like newly-minted pennies in the water!

Thank you, Chilly, for pointing that out.