Dear Reader:

At one pivotal moment (the Mitford Series) in Father Tim’s life he must choose whether he is willing to make blood transfusions to someone he just discovered is a half-brother….through his father’s infidelity and a housekeeper who he loved, devotedly, as a second mother…while a little boy. Father Tim is torn…angry and confused… but after much prayer and meditation…he does what he knows is right.

He goes down memory lane and remembers that at sixty (he is now turning 70) he was still a bachelor and had no clue what the future held…a beautiful wife, an adopted son, a dog who adopted him and more family, than he ever could have imagined, to fill the voids in his life. Now his half-brother Henry is turning sixty and will, most likely, die of leukemia… if he, as a compatible donor, doesn’t help.

Father Tim wants to give Henry the same chance at a whole new life that he got at the same age…sure enough a couple of years later he receives an invitation to his half-brother’s wedding. Through letters they grow close and  accept the situation for what it was…and now for what it has brought ..a brother for each of them to grow old with…

While this retreat at the beach has two of our Ya’s waiting for surgeries to restore daily, ordinary habits that each once took for granted…it gives us all an opportunity to ‘look to the horizon’ for the hope needed to calm anxieties and fears… replacing them with joy and euphoria…the ‘best is yet to be as we help each other grow better and stronger in so many different ways.‘

Won’t we all reflect, one day, back on different periods in our lives when we thought that  all the “good things” in life had come and gone…only to discover that the very best things were still waiting for us? It just took us deciding to take the leap of faith to find all  our future joy patiently biding its time…if we had the courage to fight for it.

So until tomorrow….

“Come grow old with me. The best is yet to be”   William Wordsworth

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Last Sunday I was getting the garden ready for my departure and went in the potting shed/garage to get some cutters when something flew right past me. It was our state bird…the little Carolina wren. It didn’t take but a second to decipher it must have built a nest inside the garage. It had…and in the funniest place.

Some of you might remember my cute little leprechaun fence decor. It was so cute and the grandchildren loved him. But one day some wind dropped a heavy branch from one of my neighbor’s tall pines and it knocked him off the fence literally “breaking his neck”….he was beyond repair.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw him away….after all he brings good luck so I just stuck him on a shelf in the potting shed. And it was here that little Carolina Wren decided to make her nest…a wise decision since now she should have the ‘luck of the Irish.’

At first she kept flying in and out when she saw me….but I stood perfectly still with my iPhone ready to snap a picture and I got her moving closer and closer to the nest…unfortunately the photo showing her flying in the nest was a blur…but all the others are cute. (Since she liked landing on the fairy land wheel barrow I assume she likes both…leprechauns and fairies…surely she is an Irish Carolina Wren!  🙂 *I think I will call her Colleen – the Carolina Wren!