I am truly Fortunes Full.

The first time I read Romeo & Juliet in high school, I was smitten. Other Shakespeare is good. Excellent, even. But Romeo and Juliet may be my all time most absolute favorite story. The ultimate love story. Sigh.... it still gets me every time. So much passion and tragedy with just the right amount of humor mixed in. And it's so enriching for young minds to get lost in Shakespearean writing. I could go on forever. I just love everything about it. Does it get any better than this?

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

 There's this one part after Romeo kills Juliet's cousin, Tybalt where he exclaims in agony O, I am fortune's fool. That has always stuck with me. I can't count how many times it's come to my mind when I've been in dark places. The time that stands out most is when my husband and I were huddled around our 2 day old son's isolette while the hospital's pastor baptized him. We were told he wouldn't live through the night and all I could think was O, I Am Fortune's Fool. For many touch and go months after that scary night, when our future was so uncertain it would keep coming back to me; O, I am fortune's fool. Then one day I was home, snuggling on the couch with that same little boy who was as close to the picture of health as I could hope for. And the saying came back to me, but in a completely different bright and sunny light. O for I am no longer fortune's fool.
I suddenly found that I was gratefully fortunes full. Full of love for this miracle little boy snuggled to my chest. Full of love for the husband who got me through such an unbelievable time. Full of love for my new family.

O I am still fortunes full and I am on top of the world.