A note of gratitude on the second anniversary of David falling ill with West Nile encephalopathy. Last year at this time I wrote in detail about all the people we visited last year to thank for their support. Over the course of the next eight months David set aside time every evening to read that day's Caring Bridge posts, look at the cards, pictures and videos, review notes, and/or puzzle over medical reports. He was glad to have so much documentation to understand the six week hole in his memory.

People still ask from time to time if David is *really* all better. Amazingly he is. The brain is amazing and while he had a very severe injury it was to the part of his brain that holds short term memories. Life could not have gone back to normal without short term memory. It is the "white board" where you hold incoming information and process it. You can't add numbers or reason something out or even create new long term memories without it. But luckily with time and practice he was able to recruit other brain cells to do this work. Let's hear it for "cognitive reserve"!

When our son Owen came home from Carnegie Mellon in the Spring he marveled at the fact that a little virus had upended our lives once again. (Of course this time it upended everyone's lives instead of just ours!) We have been very fortunate to be able to work and study at home, but we have all been missing working with people directly. Owen missed people enough that he went to work as an EMT here in Baltimore on an emergency contract. (That was quite an education!) And this Fall he will begin a paramedic certification in the evenings (since there will be no evening plays to work on at CMU).

This past week we took a break from our work and spent time together even though we could not go to Family Camp at Camp Friendship. A friend of ours took this picture of us in our CF T-shirts. So glad this is the second anniversary and not the first. We really treasure the opportunity we had last year to travel and visit with everyone who helped us.

Sending love to you and your family today. Hoping you are able to avoid all serious viruses. Remember your bug spray when you are enjoying the great outdoors. Remember your mask when you are enjoying people's company. It's often the simple things that matter the most.