This weekend brought the reality of death very close once again.  Our 
daughter is living with a guy not far from our home.  They have lived 
together for a long time.  He has a daughter by the name of Ada.  She is 10 
years old and is a gifted child, meaning, of high I Q and goes to a special 
school.  She stays weekends with Gretchen and Mike and then the following 
weekend, Ada stays with her real mom.  Unfortunately, her real mom is an 
alcoholic and drug addict.  The guy who lives with Ada's mom is the father 
of a younger autistic boy whom Ada loves greatly.  On Saint Patrick's day, 
Ada's mom began drinking,  To make a complicated story short, she drank 
herself into a black out, aspirated, and stopped breathing.  The got her 
breathing again at the hospital but she was in a coma.  She had been without 
oxygen too long and could not be fully revived.  Gretchen, Ada, her dad, 
Mike, and Ada's mom's family all were at the hospital this weekend when they 
disconnected her from life support.  Fortunately, Ada and Gretchen are very 
close and Ada loves Gretchen very much.  Pray for little Ada when you think 
of her and for Gretchen, too, because my daughter has been Ada's mom, for 
all practical purposes, for a long time but Gretchen needs our prayers, too.

Phil.