Happy Birthday

It was pouring rain, but I just couldn’t leave on his birthday, Christmas Day. I placed the pine cone wreath against the headstone, the red bells I added for the holiday chiming.

Drenched, I kneeled and said a silent prayer. I teared at the memory of his last birthday, ecstatic after he tore open the wrapping and saw it was golf clubs; his blue eyes lit the room.

I stood for a few more minutes reflecting.

As I touched the tombstone, I felt a shiver up my arm and one of the bells landed by my foot.

“Happy Birthday, Georgie.”

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Man's Best Friend

My wife said I treated Tobasco better than I treated the kids. I walked him three times a day.

I took him water skiing and skydiving. I fed him rib tips and chili for dinner. He's ridden shotgun

in my Ferrari more than my wife. She has a conniption because I gave Tobasco a 24-karat gold

funeral with a sterling silver tombstone and cremated her mother. The heifer didn't like me anyway.

Tobasco didn't complain about dinner, clothes, and require $1000 cell phones. He didn't fail in

school and talk back. Excuse me while I cry and blow snot everywhere.

From Guest Contributor Gary L. Dozier

Irresistible

Brian loved being an angel. Heaven was a playground without any teachers and Earth was Tombstone before Wyatt Earp came to town. In other words, anything goes.

There was just one rule to being an angel. Every angel learned, upon getting his wings, the one hard fast prohibition that could get you in hot water. Unfortunately, Brian had broken it three times this very first morning.

Now Brian was going to hell.

"You'd think God would have learned his lesson with the apple. If you don't want people punching baby angels in the face, don't make a rule prohibiting it."

A Loving Husband And Father

He used to be a loving husband and father, a fact so known it was written on his tombstone. His wife knew every night as he was loving her. Once, he loved her so hard she hurt and asked him to love a little less.

He had more to give so he loved Stephanie when her husband’s love had dried up.

He stopped when he disciplined his daughter, who had been such a soft-skinned baby and now was a naughty teenager. That night he spanked her, then loved her along and inside her skin.

Stephanie stopped his loving heart forever.

From Guest Contributor Emily Aledort