> How It Will End How It Will End --------------- Sooner or later you're going to lose. You are a junior spelling champion. Your parents have been teaching you at home since you were four. You've never wasted a moment in a conventional classroom. Instead you stay home and study. Spelling, reading, English. Word lists. Latin for etymology. You play Scrabble and Boggle. You have boxes of flash cards. And you keep up your other studies as well, because you have to spend at least four hours a day on conventional, non-spelling subjects to be eligible. You go to church. You do chores. You attend home-schooling co-op events so that you'll meet a wide range of people. 1. Even with all that work, it's very, very unlikely that you'll win at Nationals. 2. But you can try. You can absolutely try. > Even with all that work, it's very, very unlikely that you'll win at Nationals. Lots of people try; only one a year succeeds. You have to be aware that you might lose, and lose again, year after year, until your eligibility runs out. That's what happens to almost everyone. Still. People at church remember who you are because they're used to seeing you sitting in your pew with your flashcards. People at the co-op congratulate your parents on how hard-working their daughter is. And if you *get* to Nationals, even if you don't win, that's a trip to Washington, D.C. Maybe being on television. If you manage to stay in until the last rounds, other spellers will study from your mistake in the years afterwards. Most people's mistakes aren't worth putting onto a word list. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Lettice Your sister's place. 2. Church Where you spend most of the time when you're not at home. 3. The Co-op Shared resources with other home-schooling families. > The Co-op The Co-op --------- Your local home-schooling co-op is one of the biggest in the state. The co-op has its own resource center, a rented storefront in a strip mall surrounded by pine trees. Inside there are shelves of used textbooks, parent guides, and inspirational literature, donated by families who have already been through them. 1. Sometimes the books supplement when families are on a low income. 2. Or introduce them to new ideas. 3. Also, there's a much bigger dictionary than most families have at home. > Sometimes the books supplement when families are on a low income. The battered set of Saxon Math books has been in circulation since possibly the 1990s. "Help me virgen mary" is written several times in pen in the margin of *Algebra 1/2*. This caused a bit of a ruckus when the book was returned. Mrs. Perry put a warning sticker on the front that said "please note marks on page 34" so that no Protestant parents would be taken by surprise. People still keep checking them out anyway. Sometimes one of the parents with special skills will run a class for the whole co-op: how to count in French, for instance, or how to dye yarn. These classes are held in the back room of the resource center. Inside it always smells like something sweet and brown and sickly, wafting from the home-brewing supply shop next door. 1. Mercifully, your parents don't sign you up often. 2. Actually, it might be nice to have more classes with other kids. > Actually, it might be nice to have more classes with other kids. Maybe the classes you've been to weren't that challenging, but it's nice sometimes to know what other students are working on. It's so hard to tell how you compare with everyone else when you're just doing home-planned curricula in your own living room. The Co-op also has a bulletin board, where parents can announce field trips and projects that they're offering jointly. Your parents typically do not organize these things, but just wait for Mrs. Perry to call and invite you. Mrs. Perry organizes *everything*. 1. Maybe it would be better to be one of the Perry kids. 2. Then again, nothing could replace your own parents. > Then again, nothing could replace your own parents. Mother and Father are entirely dedicated to you and your education. Father once told you that if he didn't have to earn something, he'd like to stay home all day too, like Mother, and the two of them would do nothing but teach your classes and work on their own projects. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Lettice Your sister's place. 2. Church Where you spend most of the time when you're not at home. > Church Church ------ You go to church at least once a week, obviously, and often more than that during certain seasons. There is special Bible study during Lent, and a lot of services around Christmas. Besides home and the Co-op, church is the place you know best in the world. 1. Your favorite thing is the flowers and stained glass. 2. What's more, it's very familiar. 3. Still, sometimes services get very boring. > Your favorite thing is the flowers and stained glass. The priests dress up. The choir has robes. There are flowers, incense, and stained glass. There are thick white candles on the altar, bigger than any candlestick anyone would ever use on a table at home. A cross hangs above the altar, and two spotlights shine on it, so that it casts two additional shadow-crosses on the back wall of the church. Perhaps the shadow-crosses represent the two thieves who were crucified alongside Jesus. Everything in church is like that: pointing to something else, outside and above the church or the congregation or the Earth itself. 1. It must be very expensive to keep all of that going. 2. But it's a sign to the secular world. > It must be very expensive to keep all of that going. It must be expensive to buy all the flowers and candles all the time, and keep up the church building, and have all the plates and goblets, which look like they might be made of gold. They probably aren't. But even so, they look like they might be. "Would it be better if the money for those things went to poor people?" you ask Mother. "The church also gives money to charity," Mother says. "It doesn't have to be either-or." "But poor people could always use *more* money," you say. Mother looks at you thoughtfully. "Yeah," she says, giving your shoulders a hug. "I'm sorry, sweetie. That's one of the not-very-nice things about the world." 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Lettice Your sister's place. > Lettice Lettice ------- Your sister, Lettice, suffers daily from being named almost after a vegetable. Her full name is Letitia. As a little girl, she couldn't say all the syllables. She called herself Lettice, and it stuck. Lettice does not mind your parents as much as you do. This is true in both senses of the word "mind." If Father gives a direction Lettice doesn't like, she will sit under the table and draw instead. She still sucks her thumb when she feels like it. She eats what she wants to and ignores the rest of the food. Once she took a bowl of lentil soup out in the back yard and dug holes and planted little dollops of lentil every two inches. Though your family is odd, Lettice doesn't seem embarrassed when new people come to visit. She doesn't apologize for the purple drapes Mother made of remnant cloth, even though, if you look closely, the purple drapes are patterned with tiny purple aliens. Lettice is not interested in learning to spell for the Bee, either. 1. Possibly Lettice is not the sharpest. 2. Then again, she's your only natural ally. > Then again, she's your only natural ally. Who else is there to talk to on long road trips? Who else has to wake up as early as you do for prayers? Even the other home-schooling kids you know aren't home-schooled in exactly the same way. One night you're sent to bed early. For comfort, Lettice puts a drawing on your pillow. It shows Father with a cloud of exclamation points over his head, shaking his finger, his eyebrows represented by one black V. And Mother working at the sewing machine, making a dress big enough for a giantess. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Spelling Practice Getting started on words for the new year. 2. The House of Mildew An introduction to another family. 3. The Doll No good deed goes unpunished. > The House of Mildew The House of Mildew ------------------- Your family meets their family at church. Their family takes up an entire row and their father is the only one who speaks during the service. The others are silent, even during hymns. But they're another home-schooling family, and they have a son who's just about your age, Jerome. 1. All your previous crushes have had names that started with J. > All your previous crushes have had names that started with J. Jerome must be meant for you too. 1. "Jerome. J. E. R. O M E. Jerome." > "Jerome. J. E. R. O M E. Jerome." "Jerome. J. E. R. O M E. Jerome." You whisper it to yourself as a bedtime treat after you have run through the day's other exercises: ACCOMMODATE, DESICCATE. But this dream dies hard. Their dad invites your family over. You all go. Their house smells like mold. Jerome ignores you. 1. He is also not attractive. > He is also not attractive. His sister Flauberta plays the flute, badly, and expects everyone to be very interested. 1. Flauberta. F L A U. B E R. T A. Example sentence: Flauberta is a disappointing flautist. > Flauberta. F L A U. B E R. T A. Example sentence: Flauberta is a disappointing flautist. For dinner there is a soup that tastes like socks. "It is garlic soup," the mother explains, smiling like the smile was painted onto a doll's head. "We grow the garlic in the back garden. Flauberta plays the flute to it." After dinner, your mother and their mother talk about patterns for modest clothing, how high above the sock the hemline should appear, and which types of collar are the least likely to display underclothes or bare skin. Flauberta reads aloud an article from the World Book Encyclopedia for the edification of the children. The fathers go out on the patio and have a conversation in the dark, with cigars. You can see the lights at the end of the cigars glowing and going away while Flauberta reads about the colonization of Guinea-Bissau and Jerome pays no attention to anyone. 1. Probably they think they are better at social studies than you. 2. Aren't cigars for rich people? > Aren't cigars for rich people? Perhaps the father of the house is richer than his moldy-smelling carpet would let on. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Spelling Practice Getting started on words for the new year. 2. The Family with All the Stuff An introduction to Mrs. Barron, who also homeschools her children. 3. The Homeschooling Newsletter Father begins a new project, and other members of the family are invited to help out. > The Family with All the Stuff The Family with All the Stuff ----------------------------- There are things piled everywhere. College-ruled pages with Latin declensions written out on them. Graph paper with quadratic equations. Physics problem sets. Clippings from a local newspaper, mostly the crosswords and logic puzzles, but sometimes also stories about scientific advances. "Just shove over some of that," says Mrs. Barron, pointing at a sofa covered with textbooks. "I've got a pineapple upside down cake in the oven. Do you like pineapple upside down cake?" You don't, but this doesn't seem the moment to say so. "I was hoping you and my sons could be friends," says Mrs. Barron. She talks with her hands, and the bright red nail polish has you mesmerized. Your mother would not approve of nail polish like that. 1. What sort of Jezebel paints her nails and doesn't clean house? 2. It's chaotic, but it has a certain compelling quality. > What sort of Jezebel paints her nails and doesn't clean house? You gather the papers on the sofa into a sheaf and set them and several textbooks on top of the coffee table. It's precarious, and several of the pages slide off. You stoop to pick them up. "Oh, don't bother," says Mrs. Barron, with a generous sweep of the painted talons. "The boys won't mind if I don't get to those. They're not graded yet, but I have strongly the impression that they won't have done very well." "Listen, sweetheart, I've got the sense that your parents don't let you do much visiting," says Mrs. Barron. "Our house is on the extreme end --" (she laughs here) "-- but I think you'll find that very few mothers are quite as house-proud as yours." 1. What does she expect you to say to that, exactly? 2. Mother does her best. 3. Yes, even this bizarre woman thinks your parents are strange. > What does she expect you to say to that, exactly? You say nothing. "Do you get to meet very many boys your age?" Mrs. Barron asks. "Sometimes at church." "You'll like mine," says Mrs. Barron confidently. The oven dings. "Stay here," she says. "That'll be the cake. I so rarely get a chance to have anyone over to tea! But with the boys camping..." And so the prattle goes on, and Mrs. Barron serves you adult tea with caffeine in it, and pineapple cake that is too sweet. However, it is the first time you can remember that you've been a guest at an adult's house, just you, by yourself. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Spelling Practice Getting started on words for the new year. 2. Jam Your family makes its yearly jam. 3. J E R O M E In which Jerome speaks. > Jam Jam --- Time has come for making jam and other fruit products to use in barter. 1. Help pick fruit. 2. Help dump in the sugar. [Unavailable] Mother thinks you might spill. Maybe when you're older. 3. Help clean. [Unavailable] You'd have to be up past bed-time for that chore. 4. Help label the jars. > Help label the jars. Father has designed the labels on the computer and printed them off onto stickers. It is up to you and Lettice to apply the stickers to the various jars and bottles. "Blackberry Jam, 12 oz" read some of the stickers, with your family name and the date. Or "Blackberry Syrup, Best for Pancakes." 1. Father's very proud of them, but the stickers still look awfully... home-grown. 2. These'll make good barter material. > These'll make good barter material. Mother oversees the operation. "Put the stickers on straight," she says, after you've done an especially wobbly one that doesn't neatly fit over the smooth space on the jam jar. "We don't want to look careless." When you and Lettice are done, Mother packs the jam jars into a cardboard box for safe-keeping. A few jars are enough to serve your family for the year, and the rest will go on trades, or be given as Christmas gifts. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Spelling Practice Getting started on words for the new year. 2. Ironing In which you help with the chores. 3. Sunday Afternoon Sunday afternoon is traditionally time for playing games. > Ironing Ironing ------- Mother is at her sewing machine. You are at the ironing board. When you're not needed, you're allowed to read your book. The rest of the time, you're a well-oiled part of Mother's operation: getting the creases out of newly-sewn items, ironing on facings and setting pleats. Not having to get up and do these steps herself saves Mother a great deal of time. 1. Give dutiful attention to the pleated skirt. 2. Set up your spelling list so you can see it while you iron. > Set up your spelling list so you can see it while you iron. If you prop the book on a clipboard opposite the iron, you can see it while you work, and recite off letters with each stroke of the iron. XANTHOSIS gets you through Father's collar and cuffs. "You don't need that much steam, darling," says Mother absently. So you stop using the steam every time you hit a PH. But you think it anyway, all through your Greek root list. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Spelling Practice Getting started on words for the new year. 2. J E R O M E In which Jerome speaks. 3. Lettice's Aquarium Encouraging Lettice in a project. > Lettice's Aquarium Lettice's Aquarium ------------------ Lettice has a blue sketchbook that she has been working on for years. On the front are silver letters that she cut out of sticky paper, which spell A Q U A R I U M. The inside of the aquarium is pages and pages of fish, and curious shelled creatures, and things with tentacles. 1. Check out what she's been working on lately. 2. Correct the spelling on the latest page. > Check out what she's been working on lately. The current drawing is a picture of a red puffer fish. Lettice has drawn it in crayon, and it has many many spikes. Strange objects from under the sea have gotten stuck to the spikes of the puffer, including something donut-shaped. "What is that?" "It's a tire," Lettice explains. "Sometimes people throw them into the ocean, remember? In that documentary on pollution?" "I think tires are much larger than puffer fish," you say. Lettice looks stumped for a moment, then shrugs. "I guess then it's a doll's tire." 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Spelling Practice Getting started on words for the new year. 2. Lawn Mowing Time to mow. 3. Middle School English A hired tutor for you. > Lawn Mowing Lawn Mowing ----------- Summertime. Since there are no boys in the house, you and Lettice get to take turns with the lawn mowing, for the patch of lawn that isn't used for gardening. The hardest part is mowing around and under the picnic table. Mother and Father refuse to put it someplace more convenient than on the grass. The lawnmower, naturally, doesn't slide underneath; so the table, with its two attached benches, must be moved out of place, then moved back afterwards. It's like vacuuming under the ottoman, only much, much slower and more annoying. 1. It's unfair asking a small person to move a table every time the grass needs trimming. > It's unfair asking a small person to move a table every time the grass needs trimming. There is an alternate possibility: get down on your knees and clip the grass around the feet of the picnic bench with a pair of hand clippers. It's hot, slow, sticky work, even when you're in the shade of the picnic table. Your hands get blistered and covered with the milk of slaughtered dandelions. Nature. It isn't as nice as the calendars make it out to be. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Spelling Practice Getting started on words for the new year. 2. Seeking Inspiration Looking for something to recharge your will to spell. 3. Sunday Afternoon Sunday afternoon is traditionally time for playing games. > Sunday Afternoon Sunday Afternoon ---------------- "So," says Father. "What about a game of Scrabble with my girls?" 1. Agree. You generally win, but no one minds. 2. Excuse yourself for private spelling drill. [Unavailable] The motivation just isn't there. > Agree. You generally win, but no one minds. Your family plays with the rule that you're allowed to look up words in the dictionary before playing, which means that you spend most of the time during other people's turns checking out options that might exist in your rack. It's practically study for you, though also more fun than average. It's a close-fought round this time. You've got more obscure words than Mother and Father, but you also have worse luck with your rack, and have to spend a lot of time playing off difficult letters in tiny words like QI and JO. Father plays a very conservative game, and since he's immediately before you in the turn rotation, he's quick to lock off any access to double and triple word scores. In the end, Lettice, playing after Mother, has almost as many points as you do. She will gloat over coming second for all of next week. "Caesar fought on uneven ground," Father says to you privately in Latin afterward. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. It's All Happening At the Zoo Your co-op's yearly trip to the Zoo. 2. Handwashing Hand-knitted things can't be washed in the machine. 3. Ironing In which you help with the chores. > Ironing Ironing ------- Mother is at her sewing machine. You are at the ironing board. When you're not needed, you're allowed to read your book. The rest of the time, you're a well-oiled part of Mother's operation: getting the creases out of newly-sewn items, ironing on facings and setting pleats. Not having to get up and do these steps herself saves Mother a great deal of time. 1. Give dutiful attention to the pleated skirt. 2. Set up your spelling list so you can see it while you iron. > Give dutiful attention to the pleated skirt. The pleated skirt is tricky work, and you give it your full attention, and many squirts with the water bottle. Hot steam rises from the cloth. There is rain on the windows and Father and Lettice are out shopping, but the room feels cozy, just because of the hot steam and the smell of clean cloth. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Halloween Celebrating Halloween in your household. 2. Middle School English A hired tutor for you. 3. Dinner Service Taking over cooking while Mother is out of town. > Dinner Service Dinner Service -------------- Mother has taken the train to visit your great-aunt near Sacramento. That leaves you and Father and Lettice to fend for yourselves, and it is understood that Father should not be the one to make dinner, because unfortunate things can result. 1. Improvise something with spaghetti. > Improvise something with spaghetti. You've watched Mother do this often enough. The spaghetti sauce is stored frozen, made monthly in a batch, so you only need to reheat it and serve it over the noodles. Cheese is nice when it's available, but the can of parmesan gratings is empty and you haven't been given a budget for additional purchases. It proves a harder thing than you were expecting. First, not all the noodles can be fit into the pot; they're too long, and stick out. Pushing them with the wooden spoon doesn't help, so you have to break most of the noodles to make them fit under water. Then the pot boils over and gets whitish scum on the stove. Mother's spaghetti never does that. Then the pot is very heavy and hot and clumsy, and you half drop it when you're trying to pour the noodles into the sieve. A good third of the noodles fall out into the sink, some of them slithering down the drain. They can't be eaten now, can they? 1. Call for Father. 2. Pour hot water over the noodles to clean them, put them back in the pot, and say nothing. > Call for Father. You summon Father to look at the mess. "It's my fault," you admit. Probably he'll just say that it's your own portion of supper you've wasted, so you can go without. Which is fair, but you're really very hungry. "Hm," says Father, looking into the sink. "Hm," he says again, looking at the goo bubbled over the stove. Then he turns on the garbage disposal. There's a roar, and the ruined noodles slip away into oblivion. "There are some frozen peas," he says. "Put them in the microwave for a couple of minutes and they'll help fill in the cracks." 1. Apologize for wasting food. 2. Just let it go. > Apologize for wasting food. "I didn't mean to waste food," you say. "I'm sorry." "It's not wasted," Father says, pouring glasses of water for you and Lettice. "It was an educational supply that has now been used up." He looks at you over his glasses. "After dinner, get your lab notebook and record your spaghetti experiment. Include all the parameters you can think of that might have affected your results. Later, when Mother makes spaghetti, you can also record her control parameters and then report what went wrong." 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Seeking Inspiration Looking for something to recharge your will to spell. 2. The Legend of Public School Mother and Father share anecdotes about what public school used to be like. 3. Daydream of Winning Because sometimes a girl just has to stare out the window. > Seeking Inspiration Seeking Inspiration ------------------- The piles of cards are becoming unmanageable. You discover you've forgotten half a dozen Spanish loan words you learned last week. The weather outside is more interesting than the dining room table. And it feels like there will never be an end of this. 1. Discuss the Bee with Mother. 2. Ask Lettice for help. > Discuss the Bee with Mother. Mother looks up from the neat hem she is setting in a gown for Mrs. Perry. "Striving for perfection is the gift we can give to our Maker," she says. "He has given you talents; what does it say in reply if you don't use them?" Yes. Yes, there is that, perhaps. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Middle School English A hired tutor for you. 2. The Homeschooling Newsletter Father begins a new project, and other members of the family are invited to help out. 3. Invitation to the Salon In which Mrs. Barron proposes an outing. > Middle School English Middle School English --------------------- After a certain point, you stop gaining anything from workbooks. Your parents put up an advertisement at a local college. "English student wanted," it says. "$20/lesson. To teach *extremely talented* middle schooler literature and composition. High school level reading materials would be appropriate." There are applicants. College students are always poor. There are a series of interviews that you are not encouraged to attend. Sometimes, stopping outside the living room door during these interviews, you hear snippets of conversation. "Academically advanced," says your mother's voice firmly. "Spelling champion... Superb grammar... Very disciplined... No disobedience." At the end of each interview, Mother leads the student to the door of the study and lets the interviewee look in at you as though you were a creature at the zoo. No words are exchanged and the student is led away again. 1. Look interesting. 2. Ignore them and keep working. > Look interesting. You contrive to be diligently reading a young person's Homer translation when they look in. It conveys the right sort of image, you think. Though there are only so many times you can read about the Cyclops and his cheese. The teacher your parents choose is Sara, a skinny girl with thatch-colored hair who bites her nails. She always looks cold in your house. After the first lesson, she always wears a lumpy woolen sweater knitted with pictures of sheep. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. That Question A standard conversation. 2. Afrikaans Loan Words A short list but strange. 3. The Homeschooling Newsletter Father begins a new project, and other members of the family are invited to help out. > That Question That Question ------------- The girl on the bus is wearing soccer clothes and looks a little older than you, and less shy. You've already explained that you're not in school soccer because you're not in school, in the conventional sense. "Do you have anyone to hang out with?" Ah, yes. This. 1. You meet people at church. 2. And there are the home-schooling co-ops. 3. Still, it probably does seem weird to outsiders. > Still, it probably does seem weird to outsiders. "It's odd, I know," you say. "But I do meet people." You try to explain how you get to know people of all different ages, not just your own peers, but younger kids who belong to other home-schooling families, and their parents and older siblings, and folks at church you volunteer with. It must come out sounding a bit mealy, though, because she says, "Man, sorry," with real sympathy. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Advent The beginning of Advent. 2. Snow Shoveling Cleaning up the walkway. 3. The Homeschooling Newsletter Father begins a new project, and other members of the family are invited to help out. > Snow Shoveling Snow Shoveling -------------- A night of atypical snow. The sky is a strange orange-brown color, much lighter than it should be. The world is hushed, except for the occasional sound of a car slithering down the hill. Tunnels across the yard indicate the miserable progress of the neighbors' cat. It is therefore your job to see that the driveway is clear before Father needs to drive anywhere. 1. ANIUK, clean snow for drinking. 2. AQILLUQQAAQ, deep heavy snow. 3. KAVISILAQ, snow hardened by rain. [Unavailable] You are too young to have to scrape the windshields, at least. 4. MINGULLAUT, thin powder snow that blows in through cracks and veils the floor. [Unavailable] That would make a mess for Lettice, though. 5. These words will not be in the Bee. > AQILLUQQAAQ, deep heavy snow. The snow is wet and heavy and takes a long time to scoop out of the way. While you are doing this, you are free to think about everyone else in the household who is snugly still in bed, and warm. Lettice, if she is awake, will be making frost pictures on the window so that later Mother will get angry about the dirty finger streaks left behind. 1. Continue... > Continue... Contents -------- 1. Orange and Purple Christmas A Christmas of simplicity. 2. The Legend of Public School Mother and Father share anecdotes about what public school used to be like. 3. Mrs. Barron Commands A little light housework at the Barron household. > Orange and Purple Christmas Orange and Purple Christmas --------------------------- The boxes under the tree are as always wrapped in paper that Lettice has decorated. Lettice's ambition this year has led her to specialize in camels and wise men. Brown crayon camels, when folded, look like mushrooms. Inside the boxes are a lot of crumpled newspaper, and among the newspaper are cards with messages on them. Like: "This represents your new textbook for social studies that you got in September!" or "This card good for one trip to Co-op movie night!" Co-op movie night is free, but usually you do not get to go, because it means driving out at night, when they are tired. When you and Lettice are done, you each have a stack of cards beside you. They look not much different from a half-hour's worth of spelling drill. Mother is looking at you and Lettice very closely to see if you are sad. 1. So you're not, of course. > So you're not, of course. Afterward in bed you look out at the snow-laced trees, which are orange from all the reflected street light. This is the way the world is. Orange snow under a purple sky. Frosty the Snowman on the neighbor's roof. Boxes of newspaper under the tree. What you feel is something else that lives next door to sad, a regret that consists of sadness on behalf of someone because that someone feels sadness on behalf of you. In all the vocabulary you know there is no word for that. If there were it would certainly be German. You slip out of bed and flip through the German box just in case, but you don't find any such thing, and the floor is cold under your feet. In heaven there will be no place for feelings of this type, which are made partly of sadness and partly of love. This too is a loss. 1. Continue...