A wonderful life, indeed
I can bore you (or make you gag) with the post about The Wife or yet another one about the Old Daughter. Because it's my forum, I get to choose. I'll give you the one about The Wife and save the kid for another day. Don't say you haven't been warned.

The Wife's favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life. She only gets to watch it once a year, but you can set your watch by the tear welling in her amazing blue eye when the kid says, "Whenever a bell ringth, an angel geth hith wingth." I offered to buy it for her on DVD, but she said, "No, you're only supposed to watch it once a year." I have no choice but to believe her.

It seems somehow fitting that she would choose that film as her favorite. She doesn't know how much of an effect she has on the world at large. She thinks she's just another stay-at-home mom driving a minivan. She actually said this once: "What's wrong with being average?"

She brings unquantifiable happiness to every person with whom she comes into contact. She doesn't necessarily wake up each day planning to do that; she doesn't schedule it; it's not part of any kind of personal philosophy or any special effort on her part. She does it just by being her. It's a quality I wish I had more of.

I try to tell her she's one of the world's special people. She blows me off. "I'm just me," she says.

That's my point exactly. The world is a better place because she's just her.