You never know when things are going to set off a defining moment in your life. They just sneak up on you, or upon you. It's like a building up of little moments, then out of the blue (or the grey); everything compiles to break open on you. Sometimes it creates tears, joy, agony, or all three.I remember when I met Hope. Recently I had met two other people: one named "Faith," and one named "Charity." Doing the scriptural math, I realized that I was one person away from meeting a triad of faith, hope and love. So my attention was grabbed when we were on the Apache Reservation one summer afternoon, and a young, beautiful [...]

Black Don't touch your forehead! Black The blur of numbness kicks in. Figures above me, one of which looks a little familar. The familiar one looked like my mother, the others I suppose were doctors. The one to my left asked, "What's your name?" "Joel Bidderman," I said. I thought it a little odd at first, since he could have just asked my mom because she was standing right there. Then he asked, "What day is it?" I said, "October 29th." To that he said something like, "Actually, it's the 30th; it's 12:45 in the morning." Great, of all the doctors I got the sarcastic one. But apparently up until then I had been saying all [...]