Dear Reader:

When Eva Cate was over visiting this past Friday she wanted to check on the fairies and see how they were doing?

She was delighted that all the popcorn she had left the fairies (before she went home from Vacation Bible School) a few weeks ago had all been eaten and was gone.

A couple of the fairies were face down in the dirt of a planter (where the thunderstorms/rain had knocked them over.) I told Eva Cate they were just trying to dig back under the trees or planter (where their homes awaited) but they were just too pooped to make it…so they fell asleep on top of the ground. SSHH! We mustn’t wake them.

Eva Cate gently turned them over and cleaned them up before helping them return back home again. And for that kind action… one polite fairy blew her a kiss!

* It was Eva Cate’s kindness in feeding the fairies popcorn that earned her the coveted “Princess Garden Fairy” award last month.

Eva Cate was worried because she found one green shoe that belonged to Tinker Bell but couldn’t find another…I assured her that fairies didn’t like shoes anyway and Tinker Bell had probably deliberately kicked hers off (like some little girl I know.)

I keep looking at Eva Cate and wondering when all the doubting questions might begin one day…I hope not soon. I need someone to share my imaginary fairy garden with…and I pray Eva Cate is not “one of those” who will stop believing and leave imagination behind with childhood.

It has been my ability to travel to far away lands and fairy lands (through my imagination/fantasy) during difficult stages in my life… that has allowed me respite from the cares and concerns of the  real “adult” world. That said…who is to say which world is real when you get right down to it. (I think we will all have to wait until we go to the next world to find out which reality was “real.”)

The following excerpt from one of my favorite books growing up (The Story Girl) perhaps addresses this question most interestingly.

“There is such a place as fairyland – but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over.

Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

Matthew: 18:3

International Standard Version
Then he said, “I tell all of you with certainty, unless you change and become like little children, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

Isn’t it the non-questioning, non-doubting (but fully trusting and child-like open-ness that is what our Creator wishes to instill in all of us…for a lifetime?)

So until tomorrow…Help us Father never forget the way to Fairyland…the land of imagination, innocence, and acceptance of the unknown…but instead continue to tell its stories and sing its songs…for all who believe.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* Since I treat all my plants and flowers like children in my garden…for me, as an “older believer” many of my blooming flowers look like little fairies dancing in happiness. ( I love my two balloon flowers…so little and dainty…just like a fairy!)

* Anne told me, before she left to fly to Oregon, to go over to her yard any time while she was gone and cut some daisies …since it helped clear them out to make room for more daisies….so yesterday morning under “cover” of the early morning fog…I hurriedly cut down a few daisies…looking over my shoulders the whole time waiting for a neighbor to pounce!
But nothing happened and I am now staring at the beautiful vase of daisies smiling back at me…Aren’t daisies just the happiest looking flowers around?

* I was telling Mollie the other day that Lachlan’s hair seemed to be changing…getting lighter and do I detect again ( from some of his early newborn photos)…a touch of red. She sent these school photos in confirmation…a “tinge of red in his hair and eyebrows… just started.”