memento vivere

It is perhaps a miracle that, throughout the nearly twenty-eight years I lived in Texas, I never saw a rattlesnake in the wild. I had to go to upstate New York to experience the thrill. During the two weeks that we were away from the parish, Emily, the girls, and I spent several days on Lake George in the Adirondacks. On our last day there, I decided to go for one more hike and prepared to set out alone on a trail leading to the top of a cliff overlooking the lake. Wisely rem