My favorite things

Meditation Garden, Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital, Charleston, S.C.

I park on the other side of this garden each morning and have the option of walking across the parking lot or through the garden. The garden route is a little less direct so I don't take it every day which is really dumb since it is so breathtakingly beautiful.

Most mornings as I enter the hospital from the west Women's Services entrances there will be a young man sitting on the bench by the door. He is rumpled, bleary eyed and talking excitedly into a phone. It's a different man every morning but they all have one thing in common. They aren't patients but they wear thin plastic bracelets around a wrist. The bracelet is the tell tale sign of a new father. They are new fathers who have fallen in love with a precious baby born during the night. It's finally a reasonable hour to wake up friends and loved ones.

That is the moment I walk by and smile to myself. It's not a bad way to begin a day.