Two Things

1.

My emotions are very close to the surface right now. Senator Obama's grandmother died today and I extend my heartfelt sympathy to him and his family. She died peacefully with family with her. Senator Obama rightly left his campaign earlier to go and say good-bye to her.

Her passing brought my mother's death back to me. Mom was ill with COPD for years and finally had to be in the hospital. I was telephoned at school to be with her. Her death was easy, the dying over the previous years was hard. But I am grateful that I was able to have her as long as I did.

Senator Obama's Grandmother was a year older than my mother was when she died and her dying was much more difficult. I hope that in the next four years the roadblocks to Cancer research will disappear no matter who is elected. I don't know of any family anywhere that has not been touched by this awful disease. I am grateful that the Senator went to see her while the quality of their visit was better than it would have been tonight. He rightly stayed on the campaign trail tonight for there was nothing he could do for her now but he can still change the awful situation that 8 years of George Bush and Dick Cheny and the Republican party he can do much for our country and the world.

I know that the Senator will never read this but these words by Thomas Wolfe have always brought me comfort when I read them when my mother passed. I send them in spirit to him.

Something has spoken to me in the night,
burning the tapers of the waning year;
something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die,
I know not where.
Saying: "To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing;
to lose the life you have for greater life;
to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving;
to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.
Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded,
toward which the conscience of the world is tending
-a wind is rising, and the rivers flow."

I hold Senator Obama and his family in the Light as they go through this time of trial.

2

I watched Boston Legal tonight. This edgy contemporary show is going off the air after this season and I will miss it. Towards the end of the show all of the characters on the show were casting their ballots. Everyone was exercising their right and indeed their duty, to vote. To participate as a citizen in this country. There will be more people vote in this election than any other in our history.  ( BTW,  Denny Crane saw the Light and "crossed the line" and cast his vote for Obama.. Smart man.

I voted a couple of weeks ago. I am proud to have done so. I always vote. The book I am reading now is about the Roman Republic. It seems that some of the issues we have in our world today are some of the same issues which were causing problems in the early days of the Roman Republic. Voting is important. I am hoping for a Democtatic landslide tomorrow. But if something else happens I will learn to live with it. I just urge every one to go out to

VOTE!

Thanks for stopping by, ARTYAL, Hugs.
and Oh yes,

VOTE