...

Six a.m. in the Ronald McDonald House. I can't sleep. Marian sawing logs in bed next to me may be a contributing factor.

The Ronald McDonald House... Just as with children's hospitals, I love that there are such things, I love the beautiful strangers that work here, the volunteers that come to make breakfast and dinner, the granola ladies that bring their dogs for the kids to pet, all the leftover food from local restaurants, all the corporate and private donors... But I hate being here. Hate, hate, hate... I hate that I've been to enough of them that I can compare their architectural and policy nuances. I don't want to know these things. I hate that I know these things.

I hate that the charity century ride I did a couple of times in high school benefited the Ronald McDonald House. That memory hangs hauntingly in the past, a wickedly cruel foreshadowing of the present.

And though these are special places, one feels far from special being in one. Just as in the hospital, everyone has their tragedy. You feel so me-too. Wallowing in your own sorrow seems even more selfish and tawdry. Because. You know there's someone just down the hall with a kid that's ten times sicker than yours, with a story ten times more tragic. I don't want to talk to that person. I don't want to know. I can't stand to know.

They say it's the house that love built. Love... Such a damned awful word. If there were no love, there would be no pain...