What's the price?

How much does this cost? If you ask this, they say, you can't afford it. I don't know if that's true or not. Lots of times I don't ask how much something is if it's not labeled. Probably about half the time because I'm passively punishing a seller for not merchandising their widgets well enough and I refuse to buy their goods. The other half of the time, I figure well, I probably really can't afford it anyway.

What about life? If you ask what the price is, would you really want to know? Would you pay for it? It's impossible to know and it's a dark place to visit, but it's a question that's been weighing on me this week. We lost a dear family member recently. I hate using the word lost like this, like he's wandering around Denio's, bewildered, but every other word that can be used to describe someone's sudden, tragic death seems just as lousy. My cousin was a big deal, a big joker, he laughed big raucous laughter, he was the big grill master. He was Santa for the kids at Christmas. Anyone with that big of a presence in a family is going to leave a big hole when they're gone. That's what we have now, a huge crater of full of missing. We're a bunch of loose ends. The cost is due and we're all paying.

I look at my kid's face, his precious, perfect little face and I feel boundless love for life. What's the price of that and will I ever have to pay for it?

[Last Night]
Ira: "Mom. These are the best butter noodles you've ever made!"
Me: "I'm so glad you like them! I love to hear nice things about my cooking. I feel it in my heart!"
Ira: "Mom. These are worth more than gold."

Using Ira's price scale, if the perfect butter noodles are worth more than gold, then life is worth more than gold times infinity.