8:139) Hope O'Keeffe 17-FEB-98 12:27

It is one of those chance encounters in the mall. A young woman glances at me; I catch her eye. She is so, so young, and her pity washes over me. Can't she see my life's richness? The giggles I shared with my kid sister in a long ago attic, moonlight and stars twinkling with us through that small window; the tiny baby fingers, smallest of miracles, wrapped around my thumb when my first daughter was born, and then my grandson; the laugh crinkles around my eyes and the corners of my mouth; the unexpected gifts, like a wink from a handsome stranger that I still remember forty years later, as he rode down and I rode up on passing escalators; the joy bubbling over, so strong sometimes that I can shoot it from my fingertips like lightning. I flash her a grin and wheel off giggling to myself.