She asked to come over, she asked to draw and color as always, and while I’m giving her paper, she looks to her left and behind her, saying, “I like your library.” What in the world was that? It was amazing. I simply said, “Thank you.” That was all. The big deal is that my 5-year-old niece commented on my library!

Her mother, my sister, just told me that while she’s not reading fluently yet, she is five and developing a bit differently, she memorizes everything very easily. So, my sister reads her a book, and she reads it back to her, having memorized it. Memory is a higher-cognitive process than reading. I say that because while we have parts of the brain that help develop memory, many, many more parts need to work together for her photographic memory to occur. And so.

I was beating myself up for more than a few things before telling my sister she wants a library, and this changed my perspective. You know, I see these things happening, and the world blooming, although I do wonder if it’s destroying itself further. You know, I feel as if people are the ones destroying themselves, and the world will survive. That’s another topic, on another subject, that I haven’t thought about much, so why even contemplate it? But I was being hard on myself, and it’s quite true that no one will ever hurt me, beat me down, abuse me, more than I can and do. I will continue unless I remind myself that it is not meant to be that way.

In the end, I sit here in peace with my Shih Tzu. I love the life I have because of her and others in my life. You know what feels best? You know why I do it? Because loving some people brings such light into my life that I care not whether they ever give me a moment of their time. It doesn’t matter. The love. That is what matters most. And with that, I leave this bit about an amazing five-year-old and why she was furious that I had the audacity to buy pizza without considering that she only eats cheese.