Ok, not always.  But even when the world is too much with me, when death and dying are all around, when senseless violence takes our young (and senseless people try to defend the indefensible), there is still joy.

Joy in a lover’s touch,

Joy in a child’s embrace,

Joy in the dark humor that binds us in loss and tragedy,

Joy in colleagues who become friends (and friends who become family),

Joy in the endless possibilities (outside of Washington), even amid the challenges, for our world,

Joy in lives that are no more but were well-lived, and

Joy that the world did not end on December 21, 2012.

And there is still hope:

in the energy and drive of kids, like SOS, to take care of the planet,

in the power of an individual’s ability to heal the world just a little bit, and

in the power of the example of a person’s life to cause others to do good in her or his memory.

Tomorrow, our family will bury a loved one, but we will not bury hope and joy.  Those live on as our inheritance.  More valuable than anything else.