Chapter 7

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” asked Barb.

The thirty-eight-year-old woman sighed.

“If you don’t want to let him--”

“Barb, I know how close you are to Glee, and I also know that he needs to get out of this town, to experience new things. Who else is better equipped to show him the world than you? He loves you, and I know how strongly you feel toward him. He’s grown into a wonderful man. I know this is what’s best for him.”

“Thank you,” and she hugged Glee’s mom, the two women sharing a great love for Glee.

“You know, Barb, he’s going to flip out, in a good way, when you spring this on him tonight.”

“The thing I have always tried to do is surprise people: to present them with something they didn’t expect.” ³⁹

“Sorta’ like how you surprised Glee out behind the shed?” Glee’s mom’s eyes twinkled with muse as she saw the shocked look on Barb’s face.

The End

Quotes & their sources:

1 “Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”

Bob Dylan - Blowin’ in the Wind

2 “Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”

Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

3 “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

Steve Jobs

4 “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Ronald Reagan, 1987, Brandenburg Gate.

5 “I watched with glee, while your kings and queens, fought for ten decades, for the gods they made.”

Sympathy for the Devil, Rolling Stones

6 “Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.”

George Bernard Shaw

7 “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”

Carl Sagan

8 “Tell her that I feel fine”

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Spock

9 “A kiss is a secret told to the mouth instead of the ear; kisses are the messengers of love and tenderness.”

Ingrid Bergman

10 “How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.”

William Butler Yeats

11 “We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.”

Taylor Swift

12 “Avoid rather than check. Check rather than hurt. Hurt rather than maim. Maim rather than kill. For all life is precious, nor can any be replaced.”

Kung Fu Television Show Pilot Episode - Master Kan

13 “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”

Mark Twain

14 “Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.”

Nelson Mandela

15 “We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day.”

Brad Meltzer

16 “The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.”

William Wordsworth

17 “The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.”

Audrey Hepburn

18 “In my life there’s been heartache and pain. I don’t know if I can face it again. Can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far. To change this lonely life.”

I Want to Know What Love Is, Foreigner

19 “I wanna’ know what love is. I want you to show me. I wanna’ feel what love is. I know you can show me.”