"A baby is God's opinion that life should go on."-- Carl Sandburg

Welcome to our family blog!

I'd like to dedicate this site to Danielle Michael, whose consistent blogging and kind prodding have birthed this online journal for our family. I will do my best to be a faithful blogger (and Mark will hopefully join in the act sometimes too). I'm excited about the opportunity to stay more closely connected with all of you... our God given community spread across the U.S. and the world. Baby Miller will get the most air time on this blog, as this "mother to be" is consumed with the preparations and joys of bringing a new life into the world, and expanding our family number by a third. Please post comments whenever you can. It's a great way for all of us to get to know our circle of friends and family. Okay, enough for the preliminaries.

I'd also like to dedicate this posting to my beloved Uncle Frank, who all the Burkes and Landsmans dearly love and miss. Baby Miller's story begins with Uncle Frank, since I discovered the happy news of the new life within me within a few hours after Uncle Frank left this life for eternity with God. Last September, while in Asia, Mark and I heard the disturbing news that Uncle Frank wasn't feeling well and was having tests for cancer. What ensued was a short and valiant battle against lung cancer, which he finally lost in January.

Uncle Frank was a special friend, teacher, literature buff, lover of truth and lover of others, cultural expert, local tour guide, and storyteller. I can't listen to an episode of Garison Keiler without thinking about Uncle Frank, since their easy style and winning humor were so alike. We all miss his compassion, his rioutous laughter, and his zeal for milking life for all its worth. I'll never forget our childhood summers in New York city with Uncle Frank as our fearless guide, gazing at the fireworks across the harbor, eating bagels on the Brooklyn bridge, or fighting the crowds to hear the New York symphony at Central Park. I won't forget the way Uncle Frank cared so tenderly and joyfully for grandma in her later stages of Alzheimer's, and how he always seemed to have the saged advice and support as Mark and I went through the inevitable ups and downs of romance and love.

Esther, mom, and I had travelled to Miami that week in January, when we heard that Uncle Frank was in his last days. Shortly after his last breaths, the family (a crowd gathered from all across the U.S.) gathered in the hospital's family waiting room to share and comfort. I had brought along my pregnancy test, since I was suspicious I might be pregnant but had not had a chance to take the test because of our travel schedule. I went down the hall to the restroom and came back with the happy news that I was positively pregnant. What a bittersweet moment that was, as we longed for Uncle Frank's life to still be here to share, yet rejoiced in the promise of a new life that God was bringing into the world. I hope this little one has at least smidgen of the many talents, gifts, and warmth his/her great uncle had!