Another thing is, you make _me_, the reader, feel alive. Times when I'm just another consumer, working the Mon-Fri 9-5, I read your tales and link back in to the world around me. It's a world I'm not exposed to. Death and trauma are infrequent visitors to my life and the processes of day to day drudgery loom large as the only reality I view. And then I come here and I tap back in to the ebb, the flow and the fragility of life and experience. Sure, it's a vicarious trip, but often Tom, reading your blog feels like looking up at the stars and understanding I'm on a spinning blue rock and that life is bigger than my viewpoint.