A toast to you
A toast to me
A toast to the dreams that we can achieve

A toast to stars
A toast to skies
A toast to the moon still bright in our eyes

A toast to the distance
A toast to the calls
A toast to our laughter running down halls

A toast to tequila
A toast to shots
A toast to the nights we together forgot

A toast to libraries
A toast to the nooks
A toast to us hiding deep in the books

A toast to goodnight
A toast to warming
A toast to kisses and tickles all morning

She served milk toast on Sunday
She served milk toast on Monday
Milk toast is what you might guess
Milk on toast with sugar and cinnamon
That is all
She served milk toast on Tuesday
That is all
Four of the five complained
She served milk toast on Wednesday
All but one cried, “We hate milk toast!”
She served milk toast on Thursday with tears in her eyes
The littlest one saw his mother’s streaming salty fluid
He said, “Momma, I love milk toast.”
The streams turned into raging rivers
Amongst all the wetness came odd quirks of laughter
Momma mustered everything she could
Next thing out was, ”I’m taking that job Dean”
What could Dad say while he sopped up his milk toast?
That is when Momma went to work for the phone company
They never ate milk toast again

It’s amazing how one hospital trip can change the rest of your life. Or even lack of one even. He was four. I, three.  It was late, I had no idea why I was going to Bridget and John’s house. More importantly, I didn’t know why Zack wasn’t coming with me. 11 pm, I guess that’s pretty late for a three year old. I don’t think at that point I really had any grasp on what was actually happening. That nothing would ever be the same again. Half asleep, trudging to that sliding glass door I’d seen hundreds of times. I went into the house, the aroma of sweet cinnamon and love hung in the air.
      Burnt toast and peanut butter. That pretty much sums up an entire year of my life. Three years old, and for almost every weekend, which was too many, spent with Bridget and John, sleepless nights and peanut butter toast. There was: late night toast, midnight toast, way too early morning toast, morning toast, breakfast toast, too much toast. I think I was a picky three year old, then again, that isn’t exactly unheard of. I wasn’t very fond of peanut butter or toast, but I still ate it. I yearned for a sweet taste of normality. I craved something routine. Funny, because my life was everything but normal during that year. Funny, because I will never eat peanut butter toast ever, again.
     Many nights spent waiting for an answer. Wishing to go back, and hoping for everything to be okay. But as the car rolled out of the gravel driveway on that first night, so did an unmedicated future for my brother.