We went to a church that had missionaries who'd come back once a year from Fiji & give talks. I remember one of them saying it was very hard work telling people they were going to lose their everlasting souls if they didn't shape up. I pictured people sitting on the beach listening to this sweaty man all dressed in black telling them they were going to burn in hell & them thinking this was good fun, these scary stories this guy was telling them & afterwards, they'd all go home & eat mango & fish & they'd play Monopoly & laugh & laugh & they'd go to bed & wake up the next day & do it all again.

We lay there and looked up at the night sky and she told me about stars called blue squares and red swirls and I told her I'd never heard of them. Of course not, she said, the really important stuff they never tell you. You have to imagine it on your own.

There are lives I can imagine without children but none of them have the same laughter & noise.

There are some days when no matter what I say it feels like I'm far away in another country & whoever is doing the translating has had far too much to drink.

These are little packets of light and you need to plant them early in the year and remember to mark where they were because lots of times they look like weeds in the beginning and it's not until later that you see how beautiful they really are.

I sometimes wake in the early morning & listen to the soft breathing of my children & I think to myself, this is one thing I will never regret & I carry that quiet with me all day long.

The most important thing you leave behind is the stuff that turns into treasures when children find it