Dear Reader:

I thoroughly enjoyed all the stories in the latest edition of Azalea Magazine but one article, Family Tides by Tara Bailey, really struck home with me a familiar ritual, as well as, I am sure many of you. Summer family reunions!

In Tara’s case it was and is the annual first week of their family’s summer reunion, at Pawley’s  Island, that still evokes nostalgic memories of the past intertwined with present-day anticipation and excitement over the family gathering again.

Annual family reunions become a living calendar and keepsake (In memorial) of the loved ones lost each year… mingled with new friends and prospective family additions. Lesson learned….no matter what has happened from one reunion to the next…life goes on. Sadness and tears, over the loss of a beloved family member, are helped by the sounds of communal squeals and  laughter of children… cousins, friends, and ever-growing extended family.

At one point in the story, the author/Tara Bailey/ made the astute verbal observation that: “It doesn’t take a long time for a long time to pass.” Her own children, now teenagers, will be hurrying to the beach (upon arrival) to claim the island as their own….as only teenagers can do. Soon, even this short stage of adolescence, will one day be just a summer afternoon’s musing of “the way it was.”

When my cousins, Marcia and Susan, came to visit me this past February it was the first time I had been with them for any length of time since a family reunion way back in the eighties.

Marcia, accidentally, left one of her scrapbooks and I have so enjoyed going back through it and finding the last family reunion… when we were all young married couples with small children. Tara is right “It doesn’t take a long time for a long time to pass.”

Mandy was the oldest and then the rest of the cousins fell in line behind….now they are all grown and married…many with their own children. So hard to believe!

Tommy looks like he is close to a year old, eating with his adorable cousin, so the reunion must have been in the summer of 1983 or whereabouts.

My cousin, Bob and his wife Lou brought their daughter Sydney to the reunion… who is now married and expecting a child of her own this summer…a little girl!

Today, many members of the family, will be gathering to celebrate my nephew Lee and his adorable wife, Vikki’s baby shower…the approaching birth of their first child in September. How precious family time is together to commemorate these special occasions.

So until tomorrow…Let us cherish and treasure every opportunity we have to share in our family and friends’ benchmarks in life….the memories that become the “keepers” for all.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Delights of the Day: Look at Harriett’s tiger lilies and crimun lilies in full bloom. Just beautiful Harriett….here are some photos of them.

Harriett surprised me, last evening, with a bouquet of these beautiful assortment of flowers and some seeds to plant. Thank you Harriett!!! I will give those seeds my best shot and see what happens!