I’m in Missouri.  It feels peculiar to be here.  Nothing seems familiar; yet everywhere I turn, I have been a thousand times before this time, this day.

I spent the morning in court on a case that would give any loud talk show a run for its money.  Afterwards, I had to draft and file no less than four motions for various orders to try to impose a little sanity on the situation.  Mom, Dad, Mom’s boyfriend, Dad’s girlfriend, Mom and Dad’s child, Dad and girlfriend’s child, Mom and boyfriend’s child:  seven human beings impacted, three of whom have no control over what the adults decide to do with their lives.

I tried to recite only facts and seek only an orchestrated orderly process for these people to manage themselves until we can get a final disposition. I tried not to impose my judgment on their conduct.  It’s hard, though; I represent the children, the helpless children, a five-year-old, a one-month old, and a six-month old.  What will these machinations do to them?  We can guess.  What we strive to avoid is a cycle, the same cycle which probably prompted their parents to act as they did to position themselves for this drama.

Then I sip coffee and read about seventeen souls drowned at Table Rock Lake.   No one would call me a religious person by anyone’s standard.  But i am left, at the end of this day, with one solid thought:

There, but for the grace of God, go I. 

And now, I’m off to dinner with friends.  Tomorrow, I will move files to storage. On Sunday, I visit Corleys on the eastern side of the state.  Then, on Monday, I fly west, to my Pacific, and home.

It’s the twentieth day of the fifty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.