As I watched Charlotte and her friends laugh and fall down and get up again, I felt a twinge of something I couldn’t quite place. Then I realized what it was: relief. I had been ready to completely devote the next four or eight years to serving my country. But that would have come with a cost. I would have missed a lot of dance recitals and bedtime stories and trips to the playground. Now I had those back. That’s more than a silver lining. That’s the mother lode.
