Hi all, I have a little story from my personal life to share with all of you.  Hope you'll bear with me.  I'll try to keep it short.  Back in the early months of 1987, when my daughter was about 3 yrs. old, I had been diagnosed as a chronic alcoholic and had just been kicked out of an alcohol treatment center for non-cooperation and general rebellion.  I came home from the hospital feeling hopeless and helpless and drank like Black Velvet was going to stop making whiskey in the next few days.  As defiant as I was, I knew I was dying.  In fact, I knew I wasn't going to last through the next year.  Even though I was mostly welcoming death, the thought of leaving my 3 yr. old daughter behind made me hurt immensely.  Whiskey couldn't kill that pain.  I feared that she wouldn't ever remember me when she got older.  So, as I began preparing for death, I got the idea to build a wooden doll cradle for her so that she'd have something good to remember me by.  Having the skill to make dovetail joinery by hand, I set out to build the cradle for her in the early morning hours of the day....before the whiskey started to flow.  When I went into my shop to work, I tried to put off drinking as long as I could, but I'd have trouble hand-cutting the joints because of my shaking hands.  So, by about 5:00 am I'd need to take a couple three good long pulls from the bottle in order to stop the tremors so I could cut accurate and perfect dovetail joints.  I had to keep working because I was never really sure how long it would be before I'd need to take a few more drinks from the bottle.  I'd make a few more cuts and take a few more drinks.....then a few more drinks and a few more cuts.  It was a balancing act.  The main idea was to drink just enough to stop the shaking without getting too drunk to cut good dovetail joints.  After a few hours though, I'd lose control and I'd be too smashed to see what I was doing.  So, I'd just have to quit working on the cradle until the next morning and devote the rest of the day to drinking Black Velvet.  Come the next morning, I'd continue the process.  Morning after morning this went on -- drinking whiskey and working until I finally finished the cradle.  As a final touch, I wrote an inscription on the bottom of it to make sure she knew that I'd made it especially for her, and that I loved her....after I was gone.  I gave it to her on Christmas morning, not expecting to be there for the next Christmas.  By the latter weeks of January in 1988, as I was trying to decide between suicide and living another day, I got so defeated and desperate that I asked my wife to get me to a treatment hospital as soon as possible.  January 24th of 1988 was my first full day of sobriety in I don't know how long.  My daughter is 29 now, and that doll cradle still sits in the room where I pray and meditate each morning.  I built the cradle so that my daughter would remember that I'd loved her.  But, as I pray, I look at that cradle -- with its perfectly cut dovetail joints -- and I remember that God loves me.  It's no longer a symbol of death....it's a symbol of life.  Blessings to all, Mike D.