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Ruth,

In a message dated 97-06-30 07:38:03 EDT, you write:

<<   LIfe to me must be full of miracles.  Do you believe in miracles? >>

It is a joy to read your post about your daughter's bat mitzvah and your own
insights regarding it.  Your "let-down" time is a natural after-effect of all
that preparation and anticipation.  Find another project!

Do I believe in miracles?  A friend and co-worker had been married and
childless for eight years.  She and her husband decided that they wanted to
start a family by the time he was 30; If she was not pregnant by that
birthday, he would have his tubes tied.  Three weeks before his 30th
birthday, she found out she was pregnant.  Pregnancy became her.  She glowed
and was ever more beautiful each day.  She delivered a boy on Valentines Day
this year.  He was healthy, happy and hungry.  He met all his growth
landmarks early.  His profile was his father's in miniature.  His eyes
recorded and delighted in everything.  Two days ago he was found, twenty
minutes into a nap, not breathing.  He was put onto a machine to breathe for
him and it was forty minutes, total, before a thready pulse was found.
 Airlifted to a big city hospital, he now awaits only the CT scan tomorrow to
convince his resisting mother that there is no brain left and he must be
allowed to pass from this world.

Did you miss the miracle?  It was the four and a half months since Valentines
Day.  We witness the miraculous on a daily basis, and usually only notice
when the miracle is interrupted.  I am not making light of my friend's grief.
 We will all do our awkward, shining best to help her, which will mean many
tears together and alone.  I gently suggest to local friends who ask me
whether there is hope for the baby that they pray, now, for strength for his
parents.  Each of those prayers joins a moving queue of miracles.  Life IS
full of them, even in the presence of death.