I normally tell the story of "what" inspired me to write a particular poem, so I thought I should put down "how it happened" for this poem as well.

Obviously friendship is the inspiration, but the details of what led to this particular poem at this particular time are what I'll talk about.

Ok. Believe it or not it started around Mother's Day. My family, (kids, step-kids, hubby) had our normal get-together here at the house.

It was rather an event filled day. About one hour before everyone was to show up...I split my head open on the edge of my youngest sons bed. I was so mad at myself. I ended up at the hospital for about 3 hours and six stitches later, was home. My husband and kids pitched in and handled things. So when I did get home, everything was under control. What a great group of kids, (and hubby too).

Anyway, dinner was great, and the night moved along nicely as usual - some watching tv (football I think), one of my other sons playing guitar, the little one on the xbox, and my step-daughter, myself and her hubby in the kitchen, were chatting it up. The conversation that night was really great. We talked about the Five Stages of Marriage: I had heard it on the John Tesh radio show one night - it was quite interesting. My hubby and I are definitely in stage 5. My step kids were quite interested in assessing what stage they were at in their relationships. It was fun.

Anyway, the conversation led into my step daughter paying me a nice compliment about why she believed my marriage to her dad was successful. I was grateful for her take on it, but proceeded to tell her, that wasn't the reason. She looked a tad surprised. So I said, "Do you want to know why our marriage is a success?"....you could have heard a pin drop..both she and her hubby were waiting for me to give the "big secret", "the reason a marriage works", "the answer for all mankind"...lol...ok.not...I proceeded to give her the answer..."The reason your Dad and I have had a successful marriage of 22 years is that "I Stayed". Through it all, I stayed. Through it all, we stayed: In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, in good times and in bad...I stayed. He stayed. When there may have been reasons for others to think we shouldn't stay together, we stayed.

So, this now leads me to this poem, and why and how, I wrote it.

Well nearly a month later, on the night before I was leaving to go out of town to visit my parents, I sat down, rather late at night (as usual), in front of my computer...and began the night by listening to a beautiful song on one of my other "lenses": http://www.squidoo.com/in-our-god-we-are-one-family/...it's the song from You-Tube, near the bottom of that web-page. That song has actually inspired me to write a few poems.

Anyway, while listening to that song, I began thinking again about my conversation with my step-daughter and her husband this past Mother's Day, "about staying together". I began thinking of who in my life, other than the obvious, my hubby and family, have "stayed"...and that led me to you my friend, my sis...Sylvia. I started remembering when we met and what our journey of 29 years has included. I started thinking about how many 19 year olds today will have the same close friend 29 years later. I started thinking how rare this must be. Sure, there are others who enjoy this, but I'll bet there's many more who don't.

With Sylvia's birthday coming up, this poem was my way of showing her my love and appreciation for her "staying"...through it all. :)

So with the beautiful song "Indescribable, by Chris Tomlin", (you can find it on this web page http://www.squidoo.com/in-our-god-we-are-one-family/), playing in the background, I opened up "Notepad" and my feelings poured out.

It was quite unplanned, and truly driven by inspiration.

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ADDED THIS JULY 2, 2007: Actually, you can find the song and video of "Indescribable, by Chris Tomlin" right here on this Lens now. It's at the bottom with the other YouTube Videos.

I'll give her a cake
you give her a candle
I'll give her a present
you give her a balloon
I'll give her another cat!!
together we can watch her panic :)