2¢: h o p e

Cold, snappy mornings. Burning piles of leaves. Gold-strewn pathways crunching under our feet. Sweaters and mittens. Fully harvested fields. Pumpkins, goblins and candy corn.

So many reasons people love October.

October has not always favored me.

A few brief cases in point:

October '88 - Kansas truckstop. A stranger passing me kleenex. Banging the payphone handset against my chest. Frantic to remove her words echoing in my heart. "I'm dying sissy."

October '95 - Peeling out of the hospital parking lot to reach Sorin's bluff and catch my breath. My breasts still heaving from anger and fear as the wind bathes me in leaves ripped from the trees. My last October? Certainly the last one whole.

October '02 - St. Joseph's ICU waiting room. 7 p.m. or 7 a.m.? I methodically turn the pages. Finite math systems. Spanish. Ethics. Marking time between visits to the room down the hall. Listening for his code blue.

October '05 - Trying to focus on my breathing by watching the late daylight shimmer on the leaves in the trees surrounding the path. A strange woman croons above my crumpled body. I hear the sirens or maybe its just my screams as something whispers "Breathe."

October '08 - Nine hours of brutal LSAT questions. Barely registering my lower body has gone numb from the cold as I sit for hours on the stoop. Temporarily blinded by love on the path. Should I have chosen differently?

Some of my hardest trials came in October, yet, it is the month I love most.

All because of a rock with etched letters that over the years have almost faded from sight. I know they are there.

But that is another story for another time.

For now, let us enjoy my 2¢ of October photos.