Spectacular Things

by Beck Dorey-Stein

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift,”

At birth, each person unwittingly signs a contract to say goodbye to everyone they’re about to meet. Life is merciless in that way, in its promise to end.

What Mia has gained in the loss of her mother is perspective. She understands she is on Earth for such an indefinite amount of time and that the only guarantee is that life is short and unreliable and that it is easy to get waylaid in daily stress that doesn’t ultimately matter. Her gift, if she has one, is simple: She is at her best when she is supporting others.

A steady, ordinary life can be extraordinary so long as it’s centered around family and community and filled with love.

won a stuffed animal tiger from the claw crane, named it Carol Burnett, and now keeps Carol in his soccer bag at all times because he swears she’s his good luck charm?

love and loss live on the same coin. It’s never heads or tails but joy and agony, grief and delight, spinning in the air, waiting on time and luck to determine not when this chapter ends but how the next one begins.