To my Girls

Lately I have been doing a great deal of thinking in regards to the changes and choices we face in our lives. Maybe for some it is the mixed feeling of moving on from something they have done all their life and now a new chance beckons. Perhaps watching parents as they age and begin that last walk has gotten my attention, dignity is all I pray for them. I think about so many friends I have seen go through changes in their lives and I am amazed at their courage. I think about the joy for life my oldest daughter has given me and the "awesome" gift she has given with my grandchildren. I often think the beautiful woman, who is my wife, will sober up and show me the door. But mostly I find myself thinking about the choices we make and the roads we travel down and I’m not sure better words were ever written then those by Bruce Springsteen.

The Price You Pay:
Bruce Springsteen


You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take
You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks
Out on to an open road you ride until the day
You learn to sleep at night with the price you pay

Now with their hands held high, they reached out for the open skies
And in one last breath they built the roads they'd ride to their death
Driving on through the night, unable to break away
From the restless pull of the price you pay

CHORUS
Oh, the price you pay, oh, the price you pay
Now you can't walk away from the price you pay

Now they'd come so far and they'd waited so long
Just to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrong
Where the dark of night holds back the light of day
And you've gotta stand and fight for the price you pay

CHORUS

Little girl down on the strand
With that pretty little baby in your hands
Do you remember the story of the promised land
How he crossed the desert sands
And could not enter the chosen land
On the banks of the river he stayed
To face the price you pay

So let the games start, you better run you little wild heart
You can run through all the nights and all the days
But just across the county line, a stranger passing through put up a sign
That counts the men fallen away to the price you pay,
and girl before the end of the day,
I'm gonna tear it down and throw it away