I don't even know where to start... hence the dizziness. It's like when they say... I have good news and bad news, which would you like first? I always say bad... is that weird?

Anyway, so there is this amazing lady I used to work with, Sydney. She was always so nice and friendly, and had worked in my store for, God, thirty years maybe? Anyway, a few years back, she found out she had Stage 4 breast cancer, the same thing her mom died from. She immediately started chemo and the mass amounts of medications. She had her breast removed and a piece of plastic put under her skin to stretch her skin to make room for an implant. She wore wigs every day to work, sucked on mints all the time because her mouth was so dry even though she couldn't actually taste them, wondered when her fingernails would be anything but brittle bits clinging to her skin. She made it through chemo, and came back to work, and then her cancer came back again. She went back into chemo, trying to hang on until her youngest son graduates high school, and was basically forced into retiring because she was missing so much work. Over this Labor Day weekend, her oldest son was killed in a motorcycle accident while she battles to survive.

I'm not sure how much one family needs, but Jesus! I always feel like I've been through so much, lost so much, that I've worked and pushed and survived to be what and who I am today, and then I hear something like this and it just reminds me that life is short and not to be taken for granted. Be honest, love people for the short amount of time you have to love them, help people to be happy, lift them up instead of pushing them down. So, Gregg Scott... may you find happiness on the other side.

Besides that, I've edited three amazing pieces of writing in the last two weeks and not really written anything myself, but hey... a contribution is a contribution. One is up for you to read now, Dreams & Clipped Wings: Chapter 8 by Shadowgod, and the other two are anthology entries which should be up soon. One by a surprise newcomer!!

Also, a new chapter of this amazing story I've been hooked on forever is up! The Good Doctor by Terry Audette THINK OF ENGLAND!!!

Also, at work the other day, I was in the checkstand, and I had all this money to put in the safe, but I couldn't get out cause it was craziness with the customers and the holiday, so I called Maria over to take it for me. She was standing there to my left waiting while I finished with the customer I was helping and talking to the bag boy to her left, while I was talking to the customer on my right. We both turned to give each other something at the same time and ended up face to face, and I said, "Oh, wow, sorry," and she said, "Oh, oops," and then the bag boy says, "Awwwww man, that would have been AWESOME!" I'm pretty sure Maria didn't understand what he meant, she's pretty naive when it comes to things like that, but I went back to talking to the customer and then the bag boy tells her, "I'm gonna be thinking about that later." OMFG did he really just say that to his boss?!

Later when I was telling Rich what happened, he said, "What?! The closest you're ever gonna get to that, and I missed it?!!"

Oh, so I made a Viv's Stories group on Facebook... whee!

Anyway, I'm off to lose myself in some story.

Hugs,

Viv