Come outside. You’ve got to see.

I was numb. Painfully numb. It had only been a few hours since, at the edge of morning, we had stood together at my dad’s bedside as he took his last few breaths. The shell of the man I had known all of my life was still just down the hall.

C’mon, you guys. You’ve just got to see it.

After he was gone, we had prayed and cried and leaned on each other, physically and emotionally.

And then we scattered.

My brother had fled north to the pond — Dad’s pond. As the dark of night gave way to the gray of dawn, a startlingly white egret took off from the bank and circled the pond, coming so close to my brother that he could hear the wind in its wings.

I had wandered to the east where I watched the gray give way to purple and then blue and red melting into yellow. The tall prairie grasses were silent as morning arrived in a world without my Dad — a world I had never known and had not expected to encounter for many more years. As the meadowlarks and mourning doves called to their mates, the sun broke over the horizon.

My aunt disappeared down the lane to the south. My husband headed northwest into the prairie. My mom stayed with his body. She insisted on bathing him for the last time by herself.

Morning arrived bright and clear. Slowly the light drove our worn bodies back into the house.

You are not going to believe this.

She wasn’t going to give up. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. The others followed.

She led us across the front yard and behind the tall pines that whispered in the breeze of a brilliant October morning. She led us toward the shed where Dad’s toys — a ski boat, the RV and his tractors — were housed. She veered to right and kept walking until we passed Dad’s woodworking shop where he had created detailed doll houses for his granddaughters, where he and his sons had spent hours completing any number of projects, where his own father’s woodworking tools now resided. And we kept walking until we rounded the corner at the back of the shop.

Look, my Dad’s sister whispered.

A small patch was left unmown right behind the shop and, in that wild space, bronze tall grasses and lavender prairie flowers had flourished. Milkweed and musk thistle moved gently in the breeze. But that slight movement could not account for all that was in motion.

Butterflies perched and clustered on every plant. A Mourning Cloak fluttered over the tiny patch of meadow and a Painted Lady or two danced on the breeze. Monarchs chased each other over our heads. Yellow Sulphurs and Wood Nymphs lazily flitted from one flower to the next. A Zebra Swallowtail and a cloud of Red Admirals joined the crowd. At least a hundred butterflies had congregated along the back wall of the shop.

The four of us stood, slack jawed, in awe.

My Dad died of ALS. I knew nothing of the disease before he told us of his diagnosis. This is not what I would have chosen, but this is the hand I have been dealt and I will play it, he wrote to his children and his sister just after the initial diagnosis. A trip to the Mayo Clinic in January made the death sentence official.

ALS slowly leaches the ability to move from its victims. First he lost fine motor skills in his legs and then his arms and hands. He lost the ability to feed himself. He couldn’t breathe as deeply, so speaking became difficult. He lost gross motor skills. He lost the ability to turn his head, to nod yes or no. In the end, all he could do was blink. But the disease does not impair the mind. As his body slowly went limp, he was excruciatingly aware of what was happening.

We were told we had three to five years. We were given only 10 months.

We laughed and we joked and we adapted to the changes that we saw every week. We teased and we cherished and we cried all 10 of those months. We carried on just as we always have. Nothing was so awful that we couldn’t laugh. In August, after my sister-in-law’s double lung transplant, she and Dad exchanged pictures via e-mail… a grinning but pale Karlene with all of her prescription bottles in front of her appeared on Dad’s computer screen and, via Mom, he fired back a picture of himself… with what was left of his smile behind the drug bottles arranged in two rows on the tray of his motorized wheelchair. When his speech became so garbled that we couldn’t understand, we worked at learning how to quickly narrow down the possibilities: Does it begin with a B? A D? A P? A T? A V? We learned to anticipate when he needed us to spread his fingers on the arm of his chair so they wouldn’t cramp. Eventually, when the difference between a nod and shake became indistinguishable, we even communicated through a new language… one blink for no and two deliberate blinks for yes.

In the end, we were grateful for those 10 months — for the warning that came both too early and too late.

When we have done all the work we were sent to do, we are allowed to shed our bodies, which imprison our soul like a cocoon encloses the butterfly and when the time is right we can let go of it. Then we will be free of pain, free of fears and free of worries — free as a beautiful butterfly returning home to God…. —Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Dad died on October 2. As his friends and family slowly arrived for his memorial service a week later, the butterflies continued to gather, too. More every day until thousands of butterflies covered his 37 acres of Kansas prairie. They fluttered and danced and lifted our spirits. After his memorial service, those who came by the house were mesmerized by their vast numbers and sheer beauty.

Throughout the following week, family members returned to their homes and their lives. Relatives from across Kansas loaded into their cars and departed. My cousins left for Michigan. The number of butterflies in the fields dwindled. My youngest brother and his children returned to Arizona. My mom’s sister headed back to Topeka and the five of us were again alone. By the time we parted company at the end of the week, the butterflies were gone and the weather turned cold.

Two years have passed, and they have not returned.

This may seem like an odd entry for a site dedicated to finding the beauty, the peace, the blessing in the moment, but I’ve never felt more blessed than in the moments I spent out in that field photographing and cavorting with the butterflies. They sometimes landed in my hair or settled on my shoulder as I tried to capture their beauty. At a time of great sadness, at a time when the cloth of my life had suffered a huge rent, I found peace and comfort and the tools I needed to mend while I sat alone in a crowded field.

Every morning when my alarm goes off and I wake up, my mind goes into instant prayer. I thank God for waking me up. I thank Him for my health and ask Him to equip me with strength, courage and wisdom to get through the day. I walk out into the day wearing a brand new smile. A smile that says, Here I am and there you are.

When I see a stranger, I smile and nod. Some smile and nod back. Others respond with a, What the heck is he in a good mood for? look and move on. This look makes me want to lower my head with shame, crawl under a rock and never smile again. But I dare not! Instead I hold my head high and keep moving on.

At work, I walk down the halls with a smile on my face. I greet colleagues and students with a smile, which usually makes them smile too. I’ve been told that that I smile too much. That I’m too happy and too friendly. I smiled at a colleague once and he replied, Smiling faces tell lies. This pierced my soul to the core and hurt my feelings. Yet I shook it off and kept on moving. In the same environment on a different day, I smiled at another colleague and she replied, Whatever you do, you keep on smiling. I then began to smile even brighter, giving the morning sun its competition. That made my day. My spirit was lifted.

I smile a lot because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It nurtures my self-esteem and my confidence, burying my insecurities. It fosters my spiritual growth, extinguishing the negative thoughts that endlessly burn inside my mind. It turns my pain to victory; my sadness to joy. Smiling is my way of saying, I love me.

I wish smiles were contagious. When someone smiles at you, you can’t help but smile right back. That would be aesthetically pleasing to see a smiling face. The world could use more smiling faces. Even when you feel like there’s nothing to smile about, smile anyway. Smiles are your umbrella on a rainy day. If we all would smile more often, we’d probably be happier people.

India.Arie said it so beautifully in one of my favorite songs called There’s Hope.

There’s hope. It doesn’t cost a thing to smile. You don’t have to pay to laugh. You betta thank God for that.

Just imagine if it cost us money to smile. Our souls, our lives and the world around us would be emotionally bankrupt. Smiles add value to those ordinary moments in life. They allow us to treasure the simple things in life like laughter; birds singing sweet morning melodies; two lovers holding hands, saying I love you; or making direct eye contact with a complete stranger, and then… you both SMILE.

Smiles provide hope. Hope for positive things to come.

The game is tied and it’s the 13th inning and it’s a one-game playoff and one team’s season is about to end depending on a throw, a tag and a slide… and the base runner slides under the tag and…Did he touch the plate?! Did he touch the freaking plate? I don’t think he did! Then the catcher looks at the umpire — heck, 50,000 sets of eyes look at the umpire — and he finally signals safe and 50,000 people scream and hug and cry… and whew, that’s when baseball has all the drama and everything I love about sports.

That was last October 1, when the Rockies and the Padres played for a chance to go to the playoffs and I was there in the press box at Coors Field and had the privilege to write about Matt Holliday tagging the plate (or not… pretty sure he missed it. He’s not sure. He banged his head on the ground, bloodied his chin and blurred his memory). It’s these rare once-in-a-lifetime moments in sports that make me love my job as a sportswriter.

But then again, baseball can be one boring game. There are 162 games in a Major League Baseball season. And many of those games lack drama and excitement and make me sleepy. Baseball is the only sport I enjoy live that can make me sleepy.

Last week I was covering one of those games that made me want to roll a cot into the press box and take a nap. The Rockies were playing the Cardinals on a Wednesday night. Fresh off a World Series, the Rockies have been beyond bad this season. Entering this game, they were tied for the worst record in baseball. And they were showing why on this night of boredom.

Colorado’s pitcher was throwing the ball all over the place to start the game. There were a lot of walks, not a lot of hits and a lot of boredom. The Cardinals took a 3-0 lead, and it got so bad that in the seventh inning a wave started and I found this to be acceptable. And I hate the wave. Hate it. I believe anyone (and anyone is usually some drunk, slobbering idiot) who starts a wave should be kicked out of the stadium and punched in the stomach.

By the middle of the eighth inning, I had finished my game story, was staying awake by talking to friends on AIM and was preparing myself to go talk to a clubhouse full of grouchy dudes.

Then with one out in the bottom of the eighth, the Rockies got a hit and then a triple and a run scored. And at first I’m annoyed, because I was ready to send my story — which even harped on the boredom. I thought I had captured the boredom and just how low the Rockies had sunk from World Series to WORST TEAM IN BASEBALL. Then the Rockies got an out and they’re down 3-1 with two outs and a runner on third and I’m thinking my “Rockies suck” story is probably safe.

Then there’s a high fly ball between the dugout and first base and the Cardinals first baseman is circling the ball and he’s about to end the game when he leans the wrong way and the ball goes the other and the Rockies are still alive. And so I start writing a new story just in case. And at first I’m annoyed, but then I realize the Rockies are going to win this thing and I start to get a rush as the drama heightens and I have to wait to see what happens so I can quickly bust out a story and get it in by the end of the game.

The next hitter up is Brad Hawpe, but the Cardinals have in a lefty pitcher and Hawpe is awful against lefty pitchers. Just historically bad. You could throw a 14-year old lefty out there and Hawpe probably would not get a hit. So the Rockies bring in a pinch-hitter and the Cardinals counter with their right-handed closer, and this might sound like a game of chess, but it’s Bobby-Fisher-against-some-other-crazy-dude-exciting chess. The Rockies get a hit and it’s now 3-2. And catcher Chris Iannetta is up.

Last season, this would have been game over. Iannetta was a rookie last year and he had the confidence of a geek hitting on a supermodel. The poor kid was hitting something like .180 and was sent to the Minor Leagues for awhile even though he was the back-up catcher. The Rockies really didn’t have any other options for back-up catcher, but they couldn’t let the kid continue to fail.

But somehow this season, Iannetta has been the Rockies best hitter, and he’s hot. He hadn’t been on this night. He was 0-for-3, but you just knew he was going to come through. And of course, Iannetta hits the crap out of the ball down the right field line for a two-run triple. The Rockies take a 4-3 lead. Three more outs and they complete a great comeback. And the adrenaline is coursing through my veins as I’m trying to capture all of this in a game story that I need to write in about five minutes.

The Rockies Suck Story is never going to see the light of day. But I don’t care. Maybe this is where it’s all going to turn around. Maybe this is what the Rockies needed. Maybe this is the most important game of 162. Then again, maybe they’ll go back to sucking.

But who cares? This is why I love this boring-ass game. This is why I’m a sportswriter.

I have been thinking lately about slowing down. While slowing down on my daily commute would be an environmentally conscious thing to do, not to mention the safety benefits, really I am more thinking about slowing down the Now. My life right now feels like it’s on rollerblades. It is rolling down a hill, precarious and wobbling, with only one way to stop — a crash. Instead, I just keep going faster and faster, with the world whipping by me, until the wind and my screaming meld in my ears, tears blur my vision and all sensory input fades.

More than anything, this loss of sensory input is what I want to avoid. I want to take satisfaction in flowers blooming. I want to be fully present when my students talk about their trip to the mall and the girl they just met. I want to pray. I want to be still and listen to God. I want to go to a market and savor fresh food. I want to cook amazing meals that aromate the entire house, and sit, just sit with people I love. I want to eat and laugh and love. I want to swing on a porch, with my head tilted back in the summer heat.

I want to go slow.

I don’t know when it is that I stop appreciating these things. For all the satisfaction and blessing they give me so regularly, I am just as quick to shorten them, replace them. One of my favorite things in the world is camping, but for whatever reason, the last time I made it out for more than a few hours was over a year ago.

Once I get out of the city, once the lights start to fade, the firmament, the blessed firmament, envelopes me. It lifts my heart high into the summer sky, cutting off the bonds of work and position and obligation so that I seem to float. I mean that being in that place — where the inky black sky stretches down to the trees, where a speck of a cricket shouts at the million pinpoint stars — being there makes me feel alive. It fills me with a vibrancy that is simply not present anywhere else.

While I might not know when, I am pretty sure I know why I stop appreciating. It is the same thing that makes going out so hard: control. The thing about control, the thing that makes it so hard, is that I want it. All the time. I want to pick the perfect time for everything. My schedule. My work. My play. My friends. Everything.

And the thing about wanting control that makes it so hard is that I don’t actually have it. It’s like I spend my entire day trying to shove my desires into the too-small boxes of my actualities. My realities are here. They are now. Life is happening, but I am too busy trying to make sure that my appointment for golf does not conflict with my Bible Study time that better end at 9 or so help me…

I guess I think that there is so much more to life than a schedule. I don’t think I was created to sprint from one thing to the next, panting all the while. That’s why I want to slow down. So maybe I will have to give up a few things. But for the things that remain, to do them well, and to have time to savor them — won’t that taste sweet?

It started out as a joke more than anything. I found it on the free table at work — where books, beauty products, chocolate and random promotional items are left for people to fight over or ignore. The postcard is actually ugly: a pea green card with a thick marigold frame. And the words. The worst part. They’re in Times New Roman Italic (I don’t know anyone who celebrates anything in Times New Roman, Italic or otherwise.) This is, like, the most uncreatively designed postcard ever. But I thought the words — I celebrate your life! — were funny, so I took it.

I kept it in my cube and held it up at unexpected times to my co-workers without saying a word.

You think we should leave work a little early because it’s been a long day?

I celebrate your life!

You have the images I’ve been waiting days for?

I celebrate your life!

You’re going to give the intern all the scanning so that I don’t have to do it? Oh yes.

I certainly celebrate your life!

Eventually, the hilarity wore off, so I pinned the card up in my cube among the staff phone list, pictures of friends and barely legible notes to myself.

Months passed before I thought about the phrase again. This time it was for a friend’s birthday. What better time to celebrate a person’s life than on her birthday, right? I sent her a birthday-eve e-mail letting her know that I was celebrating her 25 years of existence (and that my present had not yet been mailed, as I do not celebrate going to the post office).

Less than a week later, my cousin was one of nine students accepted into a highly competitive graduate program. We had agreed that if she got in, we’d splurge on a nice restaurant (the kind we visited when other people picked up the tab). After we’d savored the five-cheese appetizer, I gave my cousin a toast; the gist of it was: Dear cousin, I celebrate your life! Somehow the awkward-yet-genuine phrase was finding its way out of my cubicle.

Once I started genuinely telling people that I celebrated their lives, I couldn’t stop. I’m not sure if people in my life were having more reasons to celebrate or if I was starting to pay better attention.

Shortly after all those celebrations, a friend told me that he was seriously considering quitting his job to start a company with his brother, an idea he’d been toying around with for years but now had the means to pursue. He told me about the preliminary work he’d done and plans for accomplishing everything else. And what did I think of this lofty plan? Dude, I totally celebrate your life. How can you not celebrate the bravery, vision, drive and creativity that it takes to pursue something like that?

And then I started to realize that it shouldn’t be such an exception to take notice and let our friends know that we’re thinking about them. When it comes down to it, we should be celebrating our friends’ lives — and our own — more often. And not just for the standard hoopla of birthdays, school and jobs.

You cooked a new recipe?

I celebrate your life!

After weeks of braving the DMV, you finally got a new license?

I celebrate your life!

I found an error in a hospital bill and was pro-active about contacting the companies so I didn’t have to pay extra for my E.R. visit?

I celebrate my life!

Taking the time to recognize the important or the little or the out-of-the-ordinary doesn’t have to be time consuming or well planned or eloquently stated. It doesn’t have to be on pretty stationery, typo-free with impeccable handwriting. But it does require you to go beyond thinking nice things to actually sharing them. So often I intend to let people know that I’m thinking about them but get sidetracked and forget. If it takes leaving the postcard in my purse and making a copy to tack up in my room, maybe that’s what I need to do to remind myself to celebrate all the wonderful things happening in our lives.

(I just hope I haven’t offended anyone by reusing the same line. If so, it looks like I need to find a new inspirational postcard.)