"It took a brain injury to open my mind." 8/29

We have spent several hours with family members of Chuck's assailant over the summer. One family member still rents from us and the relationship is warm.

We all had our lives dramatically altered in the same moment and Michael Ayer's family members have lost work, been shunned at school and suffered a number of other consequences through no doing of their own, as a result of Michael's actions and the publicity around this story.

As Chuck said in his sermon message at the Sandstrom Family reunion: "I have sins of my own to grapple with. The sins of others are none of my business."

We consider ourselves better in all the important ways for having had this experience, learning to live from the heart and in the present moment. Chuck likes to say "The brain is over-rated." And, "It took a brain injury to open my mind."

I'm teaching a basic writing class up at University of Akron four days a week and enjoying those 20 students a great deal. We continue to be blessed, encouraged and supported through our association with Goodyear Heights Presbyterian church and Pastor Christy who has been a "friend in deed" from day one.

My own writing seems to have dropped out of the picture again as I take up responsibilities here at home, but I'm carving out space and time for my own well-being and experiencing some profound healing of longstanding issues. There's a sense of open-endedness for the future, where we'll be living, what we'll be doing -- kind of like being 22 years old again -- most days, this is okay and even fun.

Chuck is regaining physical strength after the collarbone injury. We take a brisk 1.2 mile walk daily in addition to his swimmming, golf and other workouts. I'm sure that in another year, our landscape will look completely different to us once again.

We watched the movie The Notebook last night. There we were on the couch, both of us blubbering for the last ten minutes. We said, "We have a love like that," blubbered some more and went to sleep.