As 2011 comes to a close and 2012 prepares to roll in, I find myself tapping my pencil against a notepad, hoping to come up with some resolutions for the next 12 months.

Over the years, I’ve changed my philosophy about making New Year’s resolutions. When I was younger, the list was all about improvement –clean out my dresser and organize my closet.

Then I went through a phase where resolutions were all about personal growth – lose weight, be nicer to people and try to not lose my temper while in traffic.

There were a few years where I refused to make resolutions, believing they were limiting and often unattainable although they were made with good intentions.

But not having any resolutions for a new year left me with nothing to shoot for, and drifting through life without any goals felt a bit lazy.

So I began thinking about what resolutions are supposed to accomplish. If I look up the definition of the word “resolution,” it means a firm decision to do something.

At the end of December, I’m quite dogmatic about the resolutions I’ve committed to a piece of paper. Come the end of January, I’m wavering. By the time the ides of March rolls around, I’ve totally forgotten what I wrote down and am back to my old ways.

They were good intentions at the time they were made, but as my Grandma Marguerite used to say, the road to perdition is paved with good intentions.

As I wrote down resolutions, crossed them off, and tried to think of what I wanted to accomplish this year, I thought about a year where I made only one resolution, and I kept it all year long.

The resolution was to do something fun once a month. That might seem odd, but in a world where we work 12 hours a day and spend the weekends running errands and the washing machine, having fun is a luxury I often put on the back burner.

I remembered the qualifications for accomplishing the resolution. The outing didn’t have to be extravagant or expensive, but it had to move me out of my comfort zone.

One month, I had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant in Houston, one I’d read about but never had time to explore. The food was delicious, and I savored every bite that Saturday afternoon.

Another month I visited the antique shops in downtown Rosenberg. I found myself going down memory lane as I saw plates and serving trays from my grandmother’s kitchen and lost myself in an old red and white checked copy of Better Homes and Garden’s cookbook, similar to the one my mom used when I was growing up.

I went to a theatre production one Sunday night, finding my way through downtown Houston adding to the adventure. Another month I visited a friend, and we had lunch at an out-of-the-way cafe.

One month, the money I would’ve spent on my resolution went to a charity and another month the money went to a family member so they could have some fun.

Knowing someone was stepping outside their comfort zone fulfilled the resolution for me and, at the same time, made me feel a little less selfish.

So this year, I’m going back in time and making a resolution to do something different once a month. It’s not a resolution that’s going to change the world, but it’s often in the small details where we find the most clarity.

Happy New Year!

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

In most families, there are movies that stay at the top of the watch list, especially around the holidays. My sister and her husband don’t consider it a true Christmas unless they’ve watched “A Christmas Vacation” while decorating the tree.

When I was younger, my family always watched “The Wizard of Oz” at Thanksgiving, knowing the movie was the first harbinger of the Christmas season.

In December, I look for “A Christmas Carol,” a 1950’s black-and-white movie starring Alastair Sim as the crotchety Ebenezer Scrooge. It’s one of my favorites and always introduces the yuletide season. For the Hebert family, nothing beats the musicals, especially “Fiddler on the Roof.” My dad was profoundly affected by the film, and my mom said he choked up every time one of Tevye’s daughters left home.

Every song in “Fiddler on the Roof” is etched into my memory because my mom played the soundtrack constantly. We know all the dialogue, and we sing along with every song, from “If I Were a Rich Man” to “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.”

Tevye, the father of three daughters, is my favorite character in the movie because he evolves and changes as he experiences prejudice, his daughters’ wishing to make their own decisions and then having to leave his hometown.

What connects Tevye to the universe is tradition. As life evolves, Tevye keeps some traditions while leaving others behind. I think about Tevye every Christmas as we maintain the traditions I grew up with and add new ones as our family changes and evolves.

For over 35 years, everyone in the Hebert family met at my parents’ home on Christmas Eve. My mom always made a huge pot of gumbo, enough for over 50 people, and everyone brought their own special dish to add to the banquet.

My brother, and then his children with him, serenaded us with guitars and Christmas songs as everyone waited to open gifts, the children first and then the adults. Laughter filled the air, and every Christmas has its own special memory — the year my we all made the gifts for each other and the ritual of taking the huge family portrait.

The first Christmas Eve after my father passed away was difficult. It was his tradition to read the Bible passage of the birth of Christ, and we knew we’d miss him even more at that moment. But my brother quietly took over dad’s duties, keeping what we did in spirit but adjusting to the changing times.

As we brothers and sisters became grandparents, we adjusted again, and many of us were no longer able to all travel to my mom’s for Christmas Eve. As heartbreaking as it was to miss the family gathering, my mother had some sage advice for those of us who couldn’t make it. She said traditions are what bind us, but making new ones is what keeps the family connected from generation to generation.

So this Christmas Eve, I’ll be making a pot of chicken gumbo but adding a few Texas dishes to the menu.

We’ll still read the passage from the Bible and I hope my son will serenade us with his guitar.

My wish is that other families can also honor the past, celebrate the present and create for the future so that, despite what obstacles and triumphs come our way, all our Christmases may be bright.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The bed in our back room is covered with plastic bags, the result of my hitting the holiday sales over the past few weeks. I’ve got a mountain of gifts to wrap, but I’m armed and ready.

Like most thrifty shoppers, I’ve got at least five rolls of holiday wrapping paper in the back of my closet. I can’t resist the after-Christmas 75 percent off rolls of paper; and by the time the 90 percent rolls come around, the paper’s almost free.

Of course, there’s only about three feet of paper on the rolls and the printing is sometimes off center. Santa might be wearing a Hawaiian shirt and the reindeer often look like beavers, but at 90 percent off, who’s complaining?

Over the years, I’ve camouflaged gifts in a variety of wrapping papers. One year, I used the comics pages from the Sunday paper. I saved those comics for over three months, but I still ran out at midnight and resorted to using remnants of rolls from the past three Christmases.

Then there was the year I decided to wrap everything in brown paper. I got the idea from my sister-in-law, Janet, who wrapped her gifts in brown paper and had her children decorate the outside with free-hand drawings.

What I didn’t know is that brown wrapping paper is heavy and practically requires duct tape to seal the edges shut. And while her children drew pretty candy canes and snowmen on the front, my boys went all out with Ninja Turtle battles and blood-drenched superheroes.

And then there’s the matter of the labels. I’ve used old computer labels, index cards cut in half and I’ve even written right on the wrapping paper. My boys believe masking tape is the perfect to/from label – cheap, easy to write on and the vanilla color stands out against the red and green.

But no matter how the gift is wrapped and tagged, the best part of wrapping gifts is making bows. I have three coat hangers in my closet, each one holding four or five different spools of curling ribbon.

It’s easy to cut the exact length I need and I can use a variety of colors for a one-of-a-kind bow. I spend quite a bit of time making sure the bows match the wrapping paper, and then I use the edge of the scissors to curl the ribbon into long tendrils.

I settled on curling ribbon after the year I decided to use raffia to decorate the boxes. Martha Stewart promised that raffia-wrapped gifts would be the hit of the evening. So I wrapped every single box with strands of red raffia and tied big raffia bows to the fronts.

They looked fabulous underneath the tree. The only problem was nobody could pull the raffia apart, and we ended up using scissors to cut every single bow and raffia ribbon from every single present. The boys made me promise I’d never try to copy any more gift wrapping ideas from Martha.

Instead of chasing after trendy gift wrapping ideas, I should probably follow the example of my son, Stephen. He’s found the perfect wrapping paper for birthdays and Christmas – aluminum foil.

Not only are his gifts instantly recognizable, our Aggie claims the receiver can then use the foil in the kitchen or to clean off the barbecue grill.

Foil – the perfect gift wrap – recyclable, original and cheap. Now that’s what I call creative gift wrapping.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

There are two ways to test a smoke detector. One is to stand on a chair and press the “test” button.

The other is to fill your kitchen with smoke and see if the alarm goes off.

One guess as to which option I chose.

The story starts out innocently enough. I had a left-over ham bone in the fridge and decided to make some soup. My husband was away for a couple of days, so getting caught up with a make-ahead meal seemed like a good idea.

I dropped the bone in a pot, filled it with chicken broth, threw in a handful of frozen mixed vegetables, and put the fire on medium high.

Soon the aroma of ham and pea soup was filling the air, so I decided to check my email on the computer in the back room. And then I jumped on Facebook to see what was happening.

Someone posted a song by Frank Sinatra, and I found myself listening to some of his other tunes as well as some other holiday favorites.

I was quite relaxed.

Until I smelled something burning.

I jumped up, ran to the kitchen and saw smoke. The liquid had boiled out of the pot, and all that was left was a charred ham bone and a pot spewing out thick smoke.

Immediately, I turned off the fire and then spent the next half hour turning on fans and opening windows. I counted myself extremely lucky there hadn’t been a fire and no damage had been caused.

Thirty minutes later, the smoke was gone from the house, but the burnt smell remained. And here’s where I came to a fork in the road.

It’s one thing to do something incredibly stupid when I’m alone. That act of stupidity jumps to a whole new level when I have to tell someone else – my husband who would never leave something cooking on the stove unattended – what I did.

Guess which option I chose.

I had 24 hours.

I stopped at the store the next day, bought two cans of Febreeze and sprayed every single room in the house.

Next I opened all the windows and turned on all the fans. I had to sit in the living room with a jacket and a blanket, but after three hours, the smell seemed to be gone.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I’d covered up the fiasco. Until I went to set the house alarm. While opening the windows, I’d accidentally broken one of the alarm seals.

Still trying to escape admitting my stupidity, I sent my husband an email, nonchalantly mentioning I might have broken one of the alarm seals while airing out the house. I conveniently left out why I was airing out the house, but I rationalized that was a minor detail.

The next day, my husband returned, fixed the alarm and didn’t say anything about any smoke smell. I thought I’d gotten away with it and then the guilt hit.

Sighing, I told him the real reason I was airing out the house. He said he’d smelled the smoke right away and was just waiting for me to give him the whole story.

I’ve learned my lesson – never walk away from anything cooking on the stove and every month, test all our smoke alarms the easy way – press the button on the front.

And, just in case things do go wrong, belly up to the bar early on. Eventually, those chickens, or in this case a ham bone, come home to roost.
 
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

It’s the first day of December, and many of us are finally finishing off the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers and turning our thoughts, and wallets, toward Christmas.

On the radio, crooners Perry Como and Nat King Cole gush over snow-covered sidewalks and shoppers bundling up in coats, scarves and boots.

For way too long, northern states have crafted what Christmas is supposed to look like, totally ignoring the South that, frankly, has it pretty good during the winter months.

First there’s the weather. Here in the South, when it snows every 10 years or so, it’s a delightful treat, not a mountain to battle our way through every morning.

Santa might visit other parts of the world in a sleigh, but he’d probably find it a lot safer using water skis to land on a snow-free Southern roof.

And that woolen suit? Forget it. A southern Santa would be better off trading those scratchy duds in for cotton khakis and a “Gulf Shores” T-shirt.

Then there’s those time-honored traditions mentioned in song and verse. Most Southerners have no idea what it means to roast chestnuts on an open fire or sip flaming rum punch.

We do, however, understand the satisfaction of gathering pecans in our back yards and making a home-made pie from the bounty while sipping on a glass of Luzianne iced tea.

Jack Frost doesn’t nip at our noses. It’ll be a cold day in July when any Southerner with an ounce of gumption allows an elf to bite at his or her nose.

Here in the southern states, we’re more likely to run the air conditioner than the heater during the winter, and many of us have no idea what it means to have coal delivered to the cellar or how to make angels in the snow.

We don’t understand wearing three layers of clothing, a coat, scarf and snow boots just to go outside nor would we ever believe getting up an hour early to shovel snow off the sidewalks is acceptable.

We scratch our heads at people who think 20 degrees below zero is tolerable and think it’s odd for people to put chains on their tires – chains are meant to tote logs, not drive on.

But when it comes to the winter holidays, there are a lot of things Southerners intuitively get.

We understand boxing gloves, not snow mittens, Dickey overalls instead of snow bibs and splashing through bayous and marshes in a four-wheeler, not a horse-drawn carriage.

When we go out to cut down a Christmas tree, we ride on the back of a flat-bed tractor, not a sleigh, and we’re okay with that mode of transportation.

We appreciate the thrill of receiving roller skates or a bike on Christmas morning and then going outside and playing to our heart’s content – in shorts.

Southerners don’t dash through the snow nor do we stop for a visit with Frosty the snowman.

Instead, there’s plenty of fresh mud on the flaps of our Ford F-150 trucks and we’ve got Mike the Tiger, the Georgia bulldogs and Bevo instead of a fickle snowman that’ll melt at the first warm snap.

Just like our Northern brothers and sisters, we understand the true meaning of the holidays – family, fellowship and faith. In these parts, we simply celebrate the holidays Southern style.

And, honey, that’s just fine with me.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

At various stages in our life, Thanksgiving has a different place in our hearts.

When we’re young, the aromas we smell in the kitchen become part of our childhood – the turkey in the oven, sweet potatoes covered with marshmallows or enchiladas smothered in gravy.

On this one day, no one fusses at us when we snitch a bite of turkey off the platter or dip our rolls in the gravy.

As teens, we pretend to resent the time with family, believing other folks must be better behaved, their mealtimes are quieter and somewhat more civilized than our families.

But secretly, we’re happy for the familiarity of our crazy aunts and uncles, our grandfathers and fathers who pass on the tradition of carving the turkey and our grandmothers and aunts who make sure everything on our plate is smothered with gravy.

As young adults, we often miss Thanksgiving dinner with our families as we travel the world, head off to college or eat with a boyfriend or girlfriend’s family.

But while we’re sitting at a different table with unknown rituals, many of us secretly wish we were back home for at least one helping of Aunt Sarah’s cornbread dressing.

When we become parents, we’re the ones stuffing and baking the turkey. We usually cook the same favorites our mothers and grandmothers prepared, but we add our own touch to the dinner and thus create new memories for our children.

And before we carve the turkey and serve the green bean casserole, many of us will bow our heads and thank our creator for our many blessings and bounties.

As I think about all my blessings, the one that comes to mind this year is for the people who aid and help my family along life’s sometimes bumpy highway.

My nephew, Blair, gives patient advice about medications and willingly shares his pharmaceutical degree with my boys and their families whenever they’re unsure about meds for their family. Thank you.

To my sister-in-law, Annie, who answers our questions about our pets, day or night, and always has the best interests of the human and the pet in her answer, thank you.

My siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins and in-laws have always always opened their homes, hearts and occasionally fishing boats to me and my family. Thank you. Your generosity has provided dozens of happy memories for my sons and me, and I thank you for those treasured memories and the ones yet to come.

I’m thankful for my mom. She makes everyone in her life feel special, and she’s always there for our family, day or night. Sometimes with a sandwich, sometimes with pears, but my mom treats every grandchild and person in our family as if they’re her favorite.

For the people who’ve stepped into my family’s path at crucial moments and helped them make wise choices, thank you. And even to those who were not so nice – you showed them how not to live.

Those thanks extend to the people who’ve helped me in my life. Their advice or being there when I needed a shoulder to cry on was crucial. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank the people who were encouraging voices in the darkness.

So this Thanksgiving, I’m giving thanks for people, the ones who help us figure out where we’re going, how we’re going to get there and, most importantly, how we’re going to stay there.

They are life’s bounty, the treasure we’re most thankful to have.
 
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

It was a tossed-off comment from a friend, a casual remark, but the words were unbelievably harsh.

“My father thinks I’m a failure,” he said.

This young man is anything but a failure. He’s artistic and witty, but no matter what I or anyone else says, the words of his father pierced his heart, a wound that will never mend.

Most of us compliment our children after a triumphant sporting event, a school play where they’re the star or when they bring home an ace report card.

What about the times when our child isn’t the star of the football team or the lead in the school musical?

Worse, what happens as we watch our friends’ children torpedoing up the ladder of success while our children seem to sit on the same rung day after day.

Often that frustration is a reminder of how we were as youngsters, and we feel the hurt all over again but with much more anguish when our children are involved.

But instead of being the wind beneath their wings, we’re sometimes gale-force winds, destroying our relationship with our children and blowing away their confidence.

Looking back, there were times when I said the right thing at the right time to my boys. They’d be angry or confused, and our subsequent conversations seemed to help.

I believed I was an involved parent – I read them bedtime stories, tucked them in at night and was on the front row for all their events, from kindergarten plays to sports to graduations.

I thought I was providing a good example by some of the things I did and, shamefully, an example of what not to do.

One evening, after the boys were grown and living on their own, I found myself on our back porch, listening to the quiet, watching the sun go down. I thought about all the good times we’d had together and, then reluctantly, all the tough times.

The arguments. The disagreements. The times I didn’t listen. The times they didn’t listen. And I longed to pull my boys back in time, hold them close and tell them I was sorry for my mistakes and shortcomings.

So I called one of my sons and apologized for all the missed opportunities and missteps I’d made as his mother. His answer surprised me.

“I don’t remember anything you did wrong,” he said softly. “And I think I turned out okay. So don’t worry about it anymore, Mom. I’m just fine.”

And with that short conversation, I realized that even when the sins of omission are great, even on the days when we feel we haven’t an ounce of patience left, our children forgive us and accept us for the flawed human beings we are.

Thank God.

Thinking about that conversation with my son, I told this broken-hearted young man the best way to prove his father wrong was to continue growing into a strong man, one capable of loving his children without reservation or judgment.

He’d come to understand that, over the long parenting road, sometimes he’ll be right and sometimes he’ll be wrong.

We all are.

I won’t win any parenting prizes, nor will my boys send me mushy Mother’s Day cards. But I can watch them as they continue to grow into wonderful men, capable of great love and genuine forgiveness.

And, in the grand scheme of life, that’s a whole lot better than a gold-plated mother-of-the-year trophy.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The young man sitting next to me was resting his hand on top of two small books. He was waiting for a book appraiser to tell him how much they could be worth.

He was one of dozens of people visiting the Houston Museum of Printing recently for a book fair, some there to purchase or sell rare books. Others, like him, to have books appraised.

“I picked this one up in New Orleans,” he said, showing me a book with a worn leather cover. “I liked the way the author described all the old-fashioned remedies for ailments.”

He then showed me his second book, a look of pride on his face as he disclosed he’d bought the slim book at a garage sale for 50 cents.

“But no matter what the appraiser says they’re worth, I wouldn’t part with them,” he said, breaking into a smile. “I just love books.”

And that seemed to be the spirit of everyone visiting the museum for the annual book fair. My friend, Pat, invited me to go with her to the museum, and I readily accepted her invitation.

I’ve always wanted to tour the museum as my family’s past is intertwined with newspapers and printing presses. I know my family’s history, but I’ve always wanted to know more about the printing industry that shaped my grandfather and my father.

At the museum, we were treated to the entire history of printing, from using rocks to make prints to sepia-colored etchings to rooms filled with antique books for all ages and interests.

One of the first exhibits we toured featured an old Linotype machine. I knew what it was without looking at the metal plate on the front because my dad ran a Linotype machine for the family newspaper when he was a young man.

From his stories, I knew the printer had to load small letters into a slot backwards, and just laying out a newspaper required hours of behind-the-scenes work.

For the next few hours, Pat and I wandered around the museum, marveling at copies of front pages documenting important days in history – the day President Kennedy was shot and the day the Titanic struck an iceberg.

We were peering through the window of the old-fashioned print shop when a friendly girl came up behind us. She was going on break, but she said she’d be happy to give us a tour first. She unlocked the room and then patiently explained how the machines worked and how much effort was required to print one poster.

She was quite excited about the process and said she began volunteering after taking a paper making class at the museum. Seeing how much time and effort went into these antique presses made me appreciate a printed book even more.

As Pat and I rounded a corner, we ran into the young man we’d been chatting with in the appraisal line. He said the expert told him one book was worth $50 and the other $75.

“Not a bad investment for a garage sale and a souvenir,” he said, a smile spreading over his face.

I asked him if he’d reconsidered selling them, and he said the answer was still no. Books, he said, would only grow more profitable as printed books lose the race against electronic editions. Besides, he confided, he simply loved his books.

Book lovers know exactly how he feels. There’s something about holding a book in one’s hands – feeling the weight of the paper as we turn the pages and running our hands over the covers – that transports readers to a far away time and place.

I know electronic readers are portable and save paper, but I can’t take one to the beach with me nor can I spend hours in a cozy store, my neck crooked to one side as I read titles and authors, getting ink on my fingers and marveling at the beautiful dust jackets that protect old covers.

The Museum of Printing History reminds us to cherish and treasure written words for they are the most powerful tools in the world. They can enlighten and empower, entertain and educate and move us to action, laughter or tears.

And that adventure begins with four enticing words – “once upon a time.”

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. The Museum of Printing History is located at 1324 West Clay Street in Houston.

After one of the driest summers in recent memory, recent showers were a welcome relief. The rainbows appeared, the grass perked up and the flowers bloomed again.

Yes, beauty was everywhere until, of course, millions of flood mosquito eggs hatched. In a matter of hours, we were literally swamped with squadrons of blood-sucking bugs.

Not even a heavy dose of Off kept them away, and maybe that’s because they’re skeeters from Texas. And everything in the Lone Star State, from bugs to the state capitol, carries that unique Texas stamp.

We’re big. We don’t quit. We’re ferocious.

Growing up in New York state, six months of snow kept mosquitoes and bugs at bay. After we moved to Louisiana, however, my knowledge of the insect world grew exponentially because we were surrounded with bugs year round.

From the cicadas in the trees to the stinging caterpillars – which should be used in trench warfare – to stink bugs, southern states have more than their fair share of creepy crawlers.

I shouldn’t mind the bugs as they’re all part of Mother Nature’s plan. But my rational mind is overruled by my irrational mind when I spot something skulking across the floor.

Like the cockroach.

These insects date back thousands of years. They adapt to any environment, they’re indestructible and absolutely gross. Walking outside after dark and seeing one crawling across the sidewalk sends me running for the front door.

Once you know these 2-inch long monsters can glide from the top of a tree, or a door frame, and sail down on top of your head, those prehistoric bugs become a living nightmare.

Texas is also home to the practically indestructible fire ant. Nothing, and I mean nothing, seems to be able to get rid of those ferocious ankle biters.

They can survive for days at sub-zero freezing temperatures and a prolonged drought. No amount of ant killer, Tide detergent or, in desperate measures, gasoline and a match, can destroy them. The grass might be struggling to survive and the shrubs are withered and brown, but the fire ants are alive and well.

Like their cousin the cockroach, fire ants survive floods, hurricanes and twisters. Maybe it’s because they’re sneaky. They hide down in the ground and, when they hear a person arriving, they’re out of that hole like after-Thanksgiving Day Wal-Mart shoppers.

Right behind the ruthless fire ants are the Crazy Raspberry Ants. Although they’re small, they’re not hard to spot – they scurry around like they’re on crack. They’re an invasive insect that’s recently made its debut here in the Houston area, and there’s nothing on the market to get rid of them.

Great. One more bug that’ll be here long after humans, like Elvis, leave the building.

The crazy ant’s cousin is the pesky but fairly harmless sugar ant. Once those ants are in the house, they’re harder to get rid of than telemarketers on a Friday night. Nothing’s worse than opening a cereal box and finding those little critters crawling all over the Capt’n Crunch.

But there’s more to fear in the creepy crawly Texas world than just ants and bugs. One of the creatures that thrives in the South and terrifies me is the newt. They’re those small, embryonic salamanders that are absolutely disgusting because you can see right through them.

They don’t bite and they’re pretty harmless, but they scare the daylights out of me. I’ve actually paid a neighbor’s son to get them out of my house. He looked at me like I was crazy, but those newts definitely belong in the bushes, not my kitchen window sill.

Cool weather has finally arrived, and the first cold snap wiped out the flood mosquitoes. Thankfully, we’ll have a couple of months of mosquito-free weather until spring arrives.

The flowers will bloom, the grass will grow and the mosquitoes and fire ants will return, bringing their distant cousin, the Love Bug, with them.

I can hardly wait.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The post on the “Caring Bridge” website was sobering.

“Kinley, the baby girl in the room directly across from Lily is being taken off the list today. They are turning off all machines. Kinley will die today. Surely she will be a guardian angel for the other children on the unit. Please pray for her family.”

The post came from Lily’s parents, Michael and Cheyenne. Lily is their 9-month-old daughter who was born with CMV, a common virus that causes chickenpox and shingles.

It’s harmless unless the baby is infected before birth. If that’s the case, the child can develop serious health problems. In Lily’s case, this cruel and silent virus destroyed the left side of her heart.

Michael and Cheyenne found themselves in a New Orleans hospital a few weeks ago receiving news that would devastate any parent – their baby daughter needed a heart transplant or she wouldn’t make it.

Most of us never have to face a life-and-death operation like this for our children. I cannot imagine what those young parents felt like as they watched their daughter struggle to live.

In Lily’s case, a human heart became available almost immediately, and Lily became a donor recipient. In the midst of their joy, Michael and Cheyenne asked for prayers for the family who’d lost their child.

Lily’s been slowly improving since the transplant, and we all feel a mixture of elation for Michael and Cheyenne and admiration for all the heartbreaking decisions they’ve had to make in the last four months.

Before I had children, I dreamed of all the fun activities we’d have together – dressing up for holidays, coloring together and going to the park to fly kites. It never occurred to me that along with the fun times would also come tough situations.

Those include frantic trips to the hospital emergency room and the terror a high fever brings when it’s 2 a.m. and you’re the one your baby is depending on to take care of business.

Parents face hundreds of unexpected moments in their child’s life, the ones where things are normal one minute and hanging in the balance the next.

Those start the minute they get here, and we kid ourselves into thinking the day will come when we’ll no longer worry about our offspring.

When they’re infants and cry inconsolably, we worry because we don’t know what’s wrong. Those nights last forever, as do the nights when they’re young children and they’re crying because of a stomach ache.

Then there are the nights when they’re adolescents, worried about their appearance or that they don’t have any friends. They turn into teens, and we worry about drugs, alcohol and premarital sex.

Every day, parents wonder where they’re going to find the strength to be an effective mom or dad. The parenting books don’t mention what to do about a tired that seeps through your bones.

They don’t offer solutions to feeling like you want to scream at the top of your lungs in frustration. They don’t tell you what to do when you receive news that your child could be facing a terrifying health issue and you have to make difficult decisions.

Books don’t tell parents what to do when they grapple for the answers with every ounce of strength in their bodies. We ask friends, family and experts to help us make a decision, but our children, whether they’re 9 months old or facing mid-life, are where we find the answers.

With one hug and one smile, we find the strength to go on without a moments’ hesitation and know that the tough decision is usually the right one. Because no matter what cards we’re dealt when a child is put into our arms, we will play that hand and never, ever fold.

In Michael and Cheyenne’s case, they’ve always known they had a winning hand with Baby Lily who’s getting better every day, thanks to a difficult decision another set of parents had to make.

They found the strength to give the gift of life to another child. And for that heart-wrenching decision, we are eternally grateful.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.