Enduring embers

My dad did a lot of visiting to people who needed help with their mental states.  He also did a lot of speaking.  He told a story in his speeches of a visit he made to a person who had not visited the group he spoke to in a while.  He sat by the fireplace in which a fire burned while they talked.  Finally, when the fire died down, he took the poker, separated an ember from the rest of the glowing coals, and watched it die out.  He made the point that the person need not stay away too long or he was in danger of having the ember's life.

While that story does make a good point, there is another point about embers, one that tells a different and polar opposite story.  Heat and oxygen keep embers alive.  Blowing on an ember provides its needed oxygen, thereby fueling and heating it, keeping the ember alive... indefinitely... until the ember completely burns itself into ash.  My heart holds such an ember.  Not the kind that is separated from the fire and soon dies, but the kind that lives, continuing to glow and burn until it turns to ash someday in the very distant future.  The oxygen of life's most pleasant moments gently blow over this ember, fueling its life... producing an eternal flame... closely guarded from ever being extinguished... always replenished by the breeze of the most enjoyable minutes life has offered.