Dear Reader:

Today’s blog post will be brief…though the grief that we all feel as low country residents, who adore our “Holy City,” will not be. This particular grief will linger forever in our memories and hearts.

How true this statement is…if we didn’t love and care for our fellowman…we wouldn’t ever feel grief…but the price would be too high for us to contemplate. If we never felt grief …it would be because we had never loved. The essence of that thought is more tragic than anything else imaginable.

So let’s do pause today and grieve…grieve for the families who lost loved ones in the senseless assault on innocent churchgoers worshiping in a place of God. Grieve for the family of the assailant whose lives, too, will be forever changed. Grieve for the assailant, himself, who lost his way in life and will pay a high price for his destructive actions. We pray that God be with him …for like us, he is a child of God.

In a passage from a short story entitled “The Rose Babies” by Georgia Hubley (from Chicken  Soup for the Gardener’s Soul) the author remembers a lesson her mother taught her.

” Most people press a flower in a book when they wish to keep it as a memento. My mother doesn’t believe in preserving  a memory by hiding it. Her motto is, “Don’t press it. When will you look at it again tucked away in a book? Make it grow! Enjoy its beauty as a living flower, not a withered keepsake.”

What a wise woman…and from her we learn that the memory of this incident can never be hidden away. But we can take this tragedy and turn it into something of beauty and meaning.

Perhaps we should plant a garden with nine trees surrounding it to remember the nine fatalities of this tragedy.  Then we could plant all kinds of beautiful flowers to put a smile on passerby walkers…and remind everyone to “enjoy its beauty as a living flower, not a withered keepsake. ”  

So until tomorrow…From out of this seemingly senseless tragedy…will burn a ray of hope that will, in turn, become a ray of change for our community… bringing us all closer together.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Many low country natives woke up to the terrible news of the AME church tragedy yesterday…but little Rutledge just woke, up, innocently, to his second birthday…with all the excitement of spending the day with his mommy and daddy…a special day.

God’s way of letting us know that life continues after the most heartfelt tragedies….a celebration of life with a two year old.

An extra celebration involved including Lachlan’s third month anniversary of life. Tommy and Kaitlyn kept Lachlan yesterday evening for Walsh and Mollie to take Rutledge to his first River Dogs game…a big birthday!

Kaitlyn emailed me two photos as proof that Tommy changed his little nephew’s diapers…a first for Tommy!

Rutledge reading a bedtime story to his little brother to end his special birthday!

Can two years have passed already? How precious time is, as well as, my two boys! Love you Walsh and Rutledge!

Yesterday I was at the Turners keeping Eva Cate and Jakie…Eva Cate was very interested in the news about the tragedy…I explained the situation to her the best I could… suddenly she closed her eyes and prayed to Jesus that He take care of all of them and love them when they got to heaven.

Out of the mouths of babes…I did have to keep giving the grandchildren extra hugs and I didn’t want them far from me.