Life's Most Special Moments.

The best year of my life was my daughters' senior year in high school. She was involved in so many wonderful things. Things she was able to share with me. Things I never had the opportunity to experience myself.

My daughter and I were so close for so many years she has never understood why I said the single most special moment in my life was the moment my sister died. It was not the moment my daughter was born.

God blessed me with just enough insight to know that the birth of my daughter was not the cause of my loneliness but rather the result of my loneliness. I was so young I did not have a clue about the blessings and joys to come.

I held my sister in my lap and rocked her all night. When daylight broke and her last breath escaped from her lips I felt her spirit pass through me as it left its earthly tomb. I knew that her pain, much the same as mine had ended. I knew she would never be molested, brutalized or lonely again.

Today I say the most special moment of my life was the moment my granddaughter was born. With the birth of my granddaughter a new life for me was born, the life of being a grandmother.

When my daughter was pregnant with my granddaughter, she followed the stages of her pregnancy on an internet site. She called me very excited one afternoon and reported to me that according to the site, her baby was the size of a bay shrimp. She has in her belly another bay shrimp, and in a few months I will be blessed with another of life most special moments. God, life is good.

K. A. Shaw