GRAVITY TWENTY FOUR -- Saturday, October 10, 1992

Great things are possible!

What a wonderful thing to be alive at this very minute. What a gift to
sometimes see all that can be done to make people's lives a joy.

Tomorrow I'll see my parents for the first time since January. Since then my father's leg was amputated. His thirty-year business has plummeted toward bankruptcy. He and my mother have had a very bleak year.

With one exception. Young Tim has finished school. Four years of having to tell friends and relatives that their "bright" son dropped out of college are now a memory. What a change from a year ago, when they had to put up their dream house for bond collateral to get me out of jail. When they first saw their totally wrecked, and at the time uninsured, $9000 car. When they watched me come apart at the seams. When I was lost.

It's been a steady and steep uphill climb since then, and let me tell you,
the view is grand from up here. Yes, I know. So what. I'm graduating.
Happens all the time. It's the expected thing.

But there's more to it. It's the feeling. Not just about graduating, but
about where my life's going. Where all of our lives are going. I see
so many possibilities ahead, so much opportunity to change things for
the better, so many ways to help people feel less alone and more alive.

If I could only bottle this mood and get everyone addicted, we'd make a paradise. Thank god that there are people who teach. Thank god that there are people who write, paint, and play the joy and sorrow that they find. Thank god there are friends to share the daily details with, who help you remember that great things are possible when you've forgotten, who share your joy when you've brought some new triumph to being.

Thank god for parents, who make it all possible. Tomorrow is their day.

From: Joe Lucia , Barbara Frankel