My fingers smell like tempera paint
And, it makes me feel happy 
Volunteered in Annie’s classroom this morning. My niece, Andrea, usually does Tuesday mornings - I’m just backup for days like today when she’s got meetings at work or something like that that keeps her from going. We painted & glittered snowflake ornaments at my ’station’. I love being in there & being a part of her days.
I still have flashes of panic, thinking about what might have been, if that stranger had grabbed her. I’ll watch her sleeping in bed & imagine her sleeping in a bed at the stranger’s house, after crying herself to sleep. I’ll see the stories on the news about missing children or, worse, when they find the body of a child who was missing & feel anguish imagining Annie in that child’s place, myself in the parent’s place. I think, for a minute, that I now know how they must feel - those parents. Then, of course, I realize that I don’t know how they feel at all - I’ve still got her here.
That whole 5 minute experience that happened to the kids with the stranger, though, makes the tempera paint smell all that much more wonderful. I have to keep on remembering what’s important in every minute.
