She said: "My name is 'Cherished Treasure'. That's not 'First Name: 'Cherished', 'Second Name: 'Treasure', but 'Cherished Treasure' all together. As you might guess, my parents who named me this were Hippies. I often wonder what it was that they could have been thinking to have given a helpless child this name. I guess they were probably stoned and not thinking right. But, truth to tell, the farm where we lived had a lot of strangely named people. I wasn't the only one, and I didn't actually think anything of my name until I had to go to a real school after the commune broke up. My name in that school got lots of laughs, as you can imagine, and it got to the point that I hated to have my name called out in class, because they always got it wrong and when they got it right, the other kids giggled and made me feel weird. When I was 18, I had my name changed. I was mostly on my own by that time and it was a hassle and a bother, but I finally was able to legally change my name to Cheryl Anne. That's (1st name 'Cheryl) and (middle name 'Anne'). I think it suits me better and everyone thinks it's normal."

Stumble It!

She said: "We must work harder to make the past present. I want you to take me down to the river; to the river of light; to the river of love, the river of faith and of hope. And when you have taken me there, leave me so that I can be lifted up by the tides and sent to where we all belong in the end. I can not get there by myself. I will need you to steer me and to give me courage so that I can be washed up on the mountain where I will make my peace."

Stumble It!

He said: "I try to get out there a couple times a year, but it's hard sometimes and in the Winter it's really hard. Cause that's when we lost him, in the Winter. Neither his mother or I were happy that he chose the Army over college, but we had to let him go and just trusted that he would come home safe. We worried about that endless war every day and the only times we could really breath was when he sent us an email message, usually short, but proof that he was still there and OK and that much closer to coming back home. But then, one week we didn't hear anything and I guess we knew. That didn't make anything any easier. It was still a shock. I thought his mother would die in my arms, her grief was so deep. It's going on three years and I always think that it will, in time, be less painful. But it never is. It's always the same and it's always dark. especially in Winter."

Stumble It!

He said: "Assassinate your beliefs! They will not help you. Strangle your doubts. They will only hold you back. We must struggle to free out bodies; free our minds and make ourselves ready for what is to come, for we are destined for the miraculous; for the divine. Our strengths will bear us away to another place unknown to us. We will fly. We will fly away in wonder."

Stumble It!

He said: "I've always liked the way that the light happens at the end of a day in the Autumn. I like the way that the trees reveal themselves in the Fall and how Nature plays tricks with us using color and mist and fading light. I like the smell of the dampness and I like the quiet. I was born in the Fall, so I expect that accounts for some of it. Of course, there is always sadness in the background in the Autumn, because I know that Winter will be coming soon and also because that was the time of year that it happened. That was when the plane came down without warning and crashed in our town. God, it was terrible. We all, neighbors and strangers together, did what we could do to rescue anyone who might have survived. But, of course, no one did. So, I guess that the Fall is my chance each year for gentle memories of trees in full color. After that comes the inevitable memory of the fall."

Stumble It!

She said: "I don't know why all of our heros get their one day of the year in the coldest days of the year. It makes missing them all that more acute. It was one thing to have marches with him in the cold when he was alive. Just being anywhere near him kept up warm then. He was a beacon and his light kept us warm and focused and alive! I don't know how else to describe it. He was so alive and so focused, just being in the crowd was enough. Just seeing him pass by in the crowd. He was a good man. He was an honest man. He brought us together. He kept us together. We could see the end of evil and the beginning of salvation. It didn't matter if it snowed or if if was below zeros because we were in the light. But, it isn't like that anymore. Now, it's just sad on his Birthday. It brings back good and bad memories. I weep a little and I laugh a bit too. Mostly, though, I feel the cold, and I hate it."

Stumble It!

He said: "I always hated being the sick kid, but truth to tell, I was sick a lot. I hated that my mother would say that I was "fragile" when everyone knew that boys could NEVER be "fragile" because they would have the poo kicked out of them on the playground. It was no fun being the "sick kid". I had to stay home a lot when all the other kids would be playing at school and meeting up with their friends and all, while I was in a dark room with nothing to do and no way to have any fun at all. Once I got to be Twenty or so, it seemed that I left the "sick kid syndrome" behind me and I finally began to live a full life, just like everyone else. I got married and we have a son who is not a "sick Kid". But it just couldn't last forever I guess. The Docs say I have cancer. It's in my brain. I guess it was too much to expect that life with sickness would last forever."

Stumble It!

She said: "You know, I'm just making it up as we go along. I think that it's more fun that way. Don't you? Everybody's got a story, but everybody's story isn't self made. Do you know what I mean? I mean that, for me at least, it has to be fun and for it to be fun, I have to have some say in what the story is, because, you see, I am my own story, and that story is the story that I'm living in. Right now. Right here. Try it sometime. It's a groove!"

Stumble It!

She said: "We've been on the boat and that boat has taken us around and while it was taking us around, we got to see some things that I would not have thought could exist on this earth, but now I know differently. When you spend a lot of time on the water, you learn from the water, because the water does, in fact, want to kill you. So you have got to be smarter than the water. If fact, you have to be more like the sky, because the sky looks down on everything, so the sky is pretty smart. From the boat we saw people who did not eat and some who did not sleep. We saw a lot of people who were sick and separated from their loved ones. We saw a lot of poverty, but we saw a lot of love as well. The good thing about the boat is you can stay if you like or you can go. We mostly went, because we had only a little time and we wanted to see as much as we could. I don't think I want to do this again, though, because the sky has told us it would be better for us that way. The sky told us to stay way."

Stumble It!