In New York, I have a photo of my parents on their wedding day in 1947. They're beaming at home plate in Houston's Buffalo Stadium. I love the photo because my dad is smiling. He didn't smile much in his later years.

The last time I saw Ted Kennedy was a generation after my first meeting, at the Senate subway below the Capitol on Obama's Inauguration Day. He was his usual gregarious and gracious self - with beaming smile and booming voice wishing my husband and me good luck with our pregnancy and expressing his excitement about the new president.

It is spectacular. From about five minutes in, when we knew for sure that we were going to have the weather to go, the smile on my face just got bigger and bigger, and I was just beaming through the whole launch. I mean, it is just an amazing ride.

I find television, and particularly live television, very romantic: the idea that there is this small group of people, way up high, in a skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, beaming this signal out into the night.

As a mom to biological children and adopted gay children all around the world, nothing gives my heart strings a tug as much as seeing a parent stand by their queer/gay/trans child with beaming pride.

A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans?

It is spectacular. From about five minutes in when we knew for sure that we were going to have the weather to go the smile on my face just got bigger and bigger and I was just beaming through the whole launch. I mean it is just an amazing ride.

It was amazing to watch him in the darkroom at an advanced age still get excited when the results were pleasing. He still struggled like we all do in the darkroom and he struggled behind the camera and when he had a success he was beaming.