Ruth's twenty seventh birthday today. I thought it would be a happy HAPPY pregnant birthday but it didn't turn out like that. Sweet Friedling died, I still struggle to accept that, and I hate seeing Ruth and Chris grieve and hurt - but I am SO PROUD of them, the way they are talking about their circumstances and feelings, working through this, together, one foot in front of the other. Bob and I took them to her favottye Itallian restaurant for dinner tonight - then out for Amy's Icecream - a local tradition which I associate with RUth and Chris (just remembered that Bob 's parents took us out for Amy's ice cream the year they came to meet me and the girls for the first time when Bob and I were dating. Ruth was seven almost eight - twenty years ago almost - hard to believe!) Tonight was wonderful and deep - after work talk and politics, after moon rise and ice cream, the four of us sat in the care in our driveway - easy for intimacy because it was quiet and dark and we could cuddle - both couples and didn't have to look at each other, and we talked about hard things - my fear of sexual harrassment on public transportation (with which I have had way too much experience) and then the death of the baby and their plans to try again, soon - all of our feelings. It is so good to be able to talk about these things, to have that kind of intimacy in our family across generations. I feel sad, but deeply blessed.