When my son was a baby, I'd hold him close and just breathe him in.  I could spend hours doing nothing except holding him in my arms, watching his perfect face, eye lids twitching in his dreams, and inhale, smelling the scent that is everything perfect and full of potential ... laundry detergent and Desitin and gentle soap and plasticy diapers... and their skin, so soft and pink with its own smell, like dew on a flower.

He's 16 now, and quickly gaining on a foot taller than me.  Tonight he decided to bench press me which became a squat which became a piggy back ride through my apartment.  He's 16 and he can carry me, which is hilarious and maybe a little frightening. ;)  But it ended with me laughing hysterically and him insisting he could make it through the doorway without damaging my knees and me insisting otherwise.

He gave me hugs and left with his dad and I went to work my second job.  On the way out the door I grabbed a jacket sitting on the chair, one that my son had worn earlier today.  It's cold now in Illinois and I walked outside and pulled it tightly around me, and I inhaled.  He doesn't smell like Desitin and diapers anymore, but it still smells like my baby.  And some Axe body spray too I think.  :)

He may be too big for me to hold in my arms anymore, but he will always be my baby.

After almost 95 years on this planet, my Grandma Jarabek has won the battle and made her way to heaven this afternoon.  She has had an incredible life, and GitterCritter is right, I should probably write down her story.  Meanwhile this will have to suffice.

Grandma married late in life, and quickly had 4 daughters in rapid succession, the oldest one mentally handicapped.  Her husband died when the girls were teenagers and younger, leaving Grandma to raise them alone.  When they moved to Arkansas to be close to her siblings, there was nothing for Aunt Vivian to do since she was no longer able to be mainstreamed in the school system, so Grandma sucessfully petitioned to start a program for the mentally handicapped.  She sent the girls around selling homemade brownies (I think that's what it was) to "start a class for our sister".  The organization that Grandma was instrumental in beginning has since become a branch of the Association for Retarded Citizens.  In the following years she also had a hand in starting the Sparks Gamma House, which is a home for battered women, as well as a crisis pregnancy center.  In between all those things she did abstract work for lawyers, raised cattle, cared for the multi-acre family homestead, had a brain tumor removed (in 87), and never lost her wit or sense of humor.  Her health has declined over the last several years, but when I was there in August she was still making jokes about "the old gray mare" and speaking with the ocassional latin phrase.

I had already planned to post this song, another one I wrote, but now find this the perfect setting to do so.  Even when Grandma's hearing went, even when her eye sight began failing, her peace and faith in God never did.  She completely understand the words Jesus said to his disciples, recorded in the book of John, chapter 14:

¹"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. ²In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  ⁴You know the way to the place where I am going."  ⁵Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"  ⁶Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." ... ... ...

²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

It is these verses, particularly verse 1 and 27, that this song is based on.  I hope it means as much to you as it does to me, especially today.

Peace

(chorus)  Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you,
Not as the world gives, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled. 
You trust in God, now trust in Me.  And you will see
I'll give you peace.
 
Come rest in my peace, let it soothe all your fears,
Let it calm your racing heart, let it wipe away your tears,
Let it flow so freely through you, fill your heart, your soul, your mind,
For you are Mine.
I give you peace.
 
(chorus)
 
Through days of endless toil, through nights of endless pain,
When each moment takes much more than you may bear,
When you cry out in despair, and there seems to be nowhere,
No place to run,
I'll give you peace.
 
(chorus)
 
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
I am your God.  I give you peace.

-- LAW

I am currently working on an assignment for my Business Finance class which ends tonight.  (Yay!)  Part of it requires reading articles from the Wall Street Journal, and this one was so excellent I had to pass it on.  I wanted to link to it, but since I located it through my school library, the link won't work for you.  So apologies and full credit to WSJ, here's something important you all should read:

The Wall Street Journal

If you think those town hall meetings over health care were fierce, wait until Americans come to understand the threat to our national financial survival posed by the interest on the government's credit card.

When the government spends more than its revenue, there is a budget deficit. These deficits are paid for by Washington selling interest bearing Treasury securities. If the government were ever to default on its promise to pay periodic interest payments or to repay the debt at maturity, the United States economy would plunge into a level of chaos that would make the Lehman bankruptcy look like a nonevent.

It is the interest on the national debt that makes our future unstable. The exploding size of that burden suggests that, short of devaluing the dollar and taking a large bite out of the middle class through inflation and taxation, there is no way to ever pay down that bill.

As of Sept. 30, 2009, the national debt was almost $12 trillion and interest on that debt was $383 billion for the year, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt. The Congressional Budget Office on Oct. 7 estimated the 2009 budget deficit to be almost $1.4 trillion (about 10% of GDP). In August, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated total government revenues at about $2 trillion. The revenue estimate included $904 billion from individual income taxes. This means the cost of interest on the debt represented more than 40 cents of every dollar that came in from individual income taxes.

Except for a few years in the late 1990s, for decades Washington has spent more than it has taken in each year and borrowed the rest. Taxpayer dollars that could have paid off debt each year have instead been spent on interest to finance debt. Unfortunately, that's a vicious cycle that will likely only get worse.

The OMB projects deficits of about $9 trillion over the next 10 years. If that occurs, the national debt will be almost $21 trillion by 2019. However, the actual amount could be much higher. The OMB also optimistically projects $13.5 trillion of revenue increases over the next decade, while minimizing the inevitable rise in interest rates that will come with an expanding national debt.

During Jimmy Carter's years in the White House, Treasury yields reached 15%. The 2009 average interest rate on the debt was only 3.2%. With our mounting national debt and budget deficits, it is reasonable to assume that in the near future interest rates on new and refinanced debt could double or triple.

In stark but simple terms, unless Americans are made aware of this financial crisis and demand accountability, the very fabric of our society will be destroyed. Interest rates and interest costs will soar and government revenues will be devoured by interest on the national debt. Eventually, most of what we spend on Social Security, Medicare, education, national defense and much more may have to come from new borrowing, if such funding can be obtained. Left unchecked, this destructive deficit-debt cycle will leave the White House and Congress with either having to default on the national debt or instruct the Treasury to run the printing presses into a policy of hyperinflation.

It is against this background that Washington is now debating whether to create social programs it can't afford.

Steve Forbes recently commented that when it comes to the national deficit, voters will put things in order. I certainly hope so. However, it's imprudent to rely just on "hope." Americans need to take notice, stand up, and remind our elected officials that in a democracy the people can change bad leaders.

---

Mr. Kadish, a real estate investor, is a trustee of the Claremont and Hudson institutes.

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