"You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. "
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's amazing what you can learn when you listen with your heart to the genius of others.

It's amazing what you can learn about life when you think you are going to die.

I began this year with a broken heart. Six months later I discovered I had a badly damaged heart.

There were times we stumbled
They thought they had us down
But we came around
How we rolled and rambled
We got lost and we got found
Now we’re back on solid ground

And oh how the years go by
And oh how the love brings tears to my eyes
All through the changes the soul never dies
We fight, we laugh, we cry
As the years go by

I cannot tell you how many times this year I listened to Oh How the Years Go By. Like Brighter Light's The Music in My Life, the genius of these words become a mantra for me in times of apprehension and uncertainty.

Amy Grant’s lyrics speak to many years gone by in my life and many days of discovery after my open-heart surgery.

In the past three years I stumbled a great deal. There were times, after I left the classroom, that were dark and uncertain.

For a while the pain was so great, I got lost in my own disappointment. Feeling alone and tormented by the indifference of so many Kitch and I spent a lifetime helping, I wondered what the future would hold, if anything.

Thank you Amy Grant for writing the words that helped us to keep on keeping on.

During the first six months of our retirement, we were constantly on the go. We traveled halfway across the country enjoying our new found freedom, visiting with friends, honoring invitations and finishing our work on the Miracle Project.

It was a great time, but then it came to a sudden stop on a freezing cold evening in an isolated place called Loganton on Interstate 80.

Stranded in a snowstorm, it is the one and only time Kitch and I spent an evening in the van. We affectionately called it an evening in the Chrysler Motel!

A chance visit by an old friend three months later and Windsor Park Stories was back on the air.

In June of 2006, we began construction of the Angel Garden in Windsor Park to memorialize the Heroes of Flight 93. It was a gigantic step into the light.

On a bitter cold evening in January 2007, we watched the 229th edition of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, "The Valley of Light." Toward the end of the program, a Hallmark commercial depicting a scene from the life of a retiring professor named Fuller and a former student named Hooper touched my heart in a very special way.

An e-mail to a very responsive and helpful person in the Hallmark media department named Kristi, and we were connected with a woman named Barbara Loots who wrote the poem that was the basis for that wonderful commercial.

Inspired by the poetic words of Barbara Loots, an imaginary teacher named Fuller, a legendary coach named Herb Brooks and the memory of a dear friend from Ireland named Brendan Vaughan, we finished the final project in Windsor Park in May of 2007 with the construction of a garden to celebrate life.

Thank You Barbara Loots.

Thank You Professor Fuller.

Thank You Herb Brooks.

Thank You Brendan Vaughan.

Thank You Ed Kopec.

Appropriately called The Garden of Life, it spoke to everything we believed to be important in life.

Michael Sackett, Let’s Rock Carved Stone, brought 100 words to life with her beautifully engraved rocks.

Then it happened. An indescribable pain in my chest cavity in an improbable place led us to a hospital I did not want to enter and an introduction to the Bagger Vance who would fix my damaged heart and mend my broken heart with his kindness and his friendship.

Our experiences provided an opportunity to tell the story of the doctors, nurses, technicians and support staff we met at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in June. Now we are involved in the largest and most important, most demanding and most rewarding project of our career.

As we bring 2007, the 65th year after my beginning to an end, my heart is filled with gratitude for the friends who stood by Kitch and me since the challenging days of 2004-05, the people who helped us dream our dream, a surgeon named Michael Harostock, his wife, Beverly, and the cardiac team that gave us a second chance to live the values that once adorned a wall in a classroom at the college that was the love of my life.

Now these values hang next to the four new arteries that enable me to breathe and do what I love to do.

It’s been quite a year and many friends old and new have been an important part of it.

Emerson’s words of appreciation come to mind:

I awoke this morning with a devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

Our friends lived what Emerson taught, "You can never do a kindness too soon, for soon it may be too late."

On this the eve of the new year I am determined to live what one of my adolescent heroes, John F. Kennedy, taught:

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

As long as my repaired heart will let me live, I intend live a life that is rooted in Affirmation, Enthusiasm, Flexibility, Loyalty and Service.

That’s what Kitch and I tried to teach, both in the classroom and by example. These are the values that made the disappointment of my ending became the mother of my greatest opportunity.

In a very special way, this day belongs to Kitch. At every step of our Heart Scene Journey she was there to help, support, care for, love and be the perfect partner.

Amy Grant was right:

And when the storms came through
They found me and you
Back to back together
And when the sun would shine
It was yours and mine
Yours and mine forever

And oh how the years go by
And oh how the love brings tears to my eyes
All through the changes the soul never dies
We fight, we laugh, we cry
As the years go by

Bagger Vance was right:

“Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing... Somethin' we was born with... Somethin' that's ours and ours alone... Somethin' that can't be taught to ya or learned... Somethin' that got to be remembered... Over time the world can rob us of that swing... It get buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas... Some folk even forget what their swing was like...”

As night turns into morning on January 1, 2008, Kitch and I will be thinking about you, giving thanks for your kindness, and praying a silent prayer of thanksgiving for what you did to help me regain my swing.

In a very special way, we will give thanks for everyone who helped us with Heart Scene: A Journey of Discovery and Recovery.

Happy New Year, and may all your stories have happy endings.

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