Winging Our Way Through Life with Hope and a Prayer

Dear Reader:

The other day as I watched a butterfly flittering through the garden…it was like watching a pinball machine being played. Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping.. as it darted among the plants. From my swing I followed it flying through the air encircling the garden several times before deciding where to light again and start over….

Mentally I was directing it to the recent blooming purple (Buddleia) or butterfly plant that had just opened…but it seemed to have a personal plan in mind and didn’t need my help…thank you.

Thursday afternoon I had a call from Mandy letting me know that John’s grandmother from Huntsville, Alabama had passed…the service was Friday…so John quickly made plans to fly out to get there in time. Mandy called and asked if I would like to come spend Friday night and play with the grandchildren …Carrie spent the day Friday too so we had a wonderful girls’ day out ( with Jake too 🙂 … then I stayed on until Saturday afternoon.

I hadn’t spent the night away since the week before the coronavirus hit when I stayed with Mandy and the children to be there (John was gone for a week at a business conference) when they got off the bus and help with night time rituals and getting out in the mornings. It was that Friday in March that they came home with all their books and materials…never returning to school. It marked the beginning of what was to come… and my last overnight stay.

So it had been awhile since spending the night..and I didn’t realize how much I had missed being there for …picking evening movies, snacks, and just listening to where the children are in their thoughts…concerns, hopes, and dreams for next year.

Carrie and Eva Cate played beauty parlor, make-overs, swimming ballet under water….Jake learned to dive…later there were golf cart rides…to actually see the whole neighborhood…fun. It is lonely being separated from family for extended periods.

***Rutledge will be our next birthday boy…arriving on Father’s Day… seven years ago.

Like the butterfly in the garden…I want to be able to guide my grandchildren in the right direction…not have them get lost while lighting in the wrong places in their search for the right path. But now at the age I am I have come to realize that there is only so much guidance family can give.

We all had to learn from our wrong choices and mistakes…they will too…it is all part of life. The hardest part is waiting to let them come to us and ask for guidance when they realize they have wandered too far from their given path…and then help them “fly” higher than ever before…

Fun in the sun….

Tigger and myself…the two “elders” in the group 🙂 We hang together!

Jake got rainbow toes polish and a trial run at lipstick…he tried to hang with all the girls. Good sport!

Jake experienced his first “spin out”…his bike hit some gravel…he turned the handle-bars one way and the rest of the bike went another…always painful on streets, of course, but “blankey” and some hugs and extra treats sent him off to “la la “land of dreams and future bike adventures.

Saturday morning we all toured Wakendaw Lakes on the new addition-the golf cart…the drive was so pretty and relaxing-cool breezes…we even stopped and let Jake look for fiddler crabs- he found a dead one and called it an ancient relic…where does vocabulary like this appear from in five-year-olds?

We stayed in contact with John…he is returning today…was glad the family was able to have a funeral service for Joan and her siblings’ amazingly wonderful mom! She lived a long life and was such an anchor in the family for everyone.

Our prayers go out to you Joan over the loss of your mother…it is never easy, no matter the age, to lose the one who gave you life and was always there for you.

So until tomorrow….Let us keep everyone in our prayers who are dealing with the loss of loved ones now with the COVID 19 even interrupting these final moments of gatherings…with the faith that they are going to another world, a better world… where there is no disease or suffering.

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

More sadness arrived with the news Thursday that my sister-in-law Susan’s (adorably loved brother-in-law Stuart) passed away. He was battling cancer and had just returned home from Atlanta after a long stay there with chemo sessions and tests. I am so glad he was home and surrounded by loving family members, friends, and close neighbors, in retrospect, though it is so hard to say good-bye.

I know prayers for both John and Susan’s families would be greatly appreciated now during these times of heart-felt loss.

While I was unlocking my porch front door…coming in from Mt. P…I glanced down at the water pitcher planter and the varigated lysimachia had more blooms than ever before! Isn’t it amazing how nature can cheer us up with blooms of hope and re-newed life?