A little summer magic

When I was a child hot summer nights meant playing outside until bedtime, catching lightening bugs, playing tag, and always being reluctant to go inside for bed.  We had no air conditioning.  But the memories of summer nights are almost all good, as are the memories of summer meals on the screened porch, when we were allowed to drink sweet tea instead of milk.  There was corn on the cob and cantaloupe, fresh green beans and watermelon.  Grilled hamburgers with baked beans.

Lightening bugs bring back all those memories.  I "googled" lightening bugs tonight, curious to know what they eat - whether they're considered beneficial insects.  It appears that they're fairly harmless beetles, eating slugs and snails and drinking nectar.  For more about them, click here.  Or if you'd like to help with firefly research,  check out this article in the New York Times.
I think I'll just enjoy the magic they bring to a hot summer evening.

A legacy of love

From a letter I wrote to my father on the occasion of his 80th birthday in September 2000. 

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. . ."  Galations 5:22-23

When I think of your influence on my life, I think of the fruit of the Spirit. The love you have given, the joy we see in your face when we’re gathered together, the patience with which you disciplined us, the kindness and goodness that are evident in all that you do, the gentleness with which you held and cared for your grandchildren, the self-control necessary to be a responsible husband, father, and son.

There is no way that I can adequately express how much your example. . .just the way you have lived your life. . .has meant to me.

My father died March 24th of this year, less than three months ago, and every day something reminds me of him and how much we all miss him.  But I'm also reminded of how blessed I was by his love and his example.

In today's edition of Parade Magazine, author Harlan Coben writes about his father, who died  of a heart attack at age 59.    In the article, entitled "Tears for a Good Father", he relates how seeing a 40-year-old photograph of himself with his father brings him to tears.  But, he writes, "This is the price you pay for having a great father.  You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments - and you get the tears at the end, too."

“We can't all leave a prestigious background or lots of money to visit our children, but we can leave them a legacy of love”  Naomi  Rhode

I am blessed by my father's legacy of love.  I am also blessed by the love of my husband, the father of my children.  A man whose integrity, hard work, faithfulness, and love of family continues to set an example for his children.  

The photos above were taken when the children were growing up.  They have families of their own now, and have blessed us with six grandchildren.  

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland

Flowers at your feet

Life is a child playing around your feet, a tool you hold firmly in your grip, 

a bench you sit down upon in the evening, in your garden.

- Jean Anouilh

And a blessed life it is!

"The best is yet to be"

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!" 

— Robert Browning

My youngest daughter and her husband celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary today.  Their wedding day was beautiful, a joyful celebration with family and friends.  We've been blessed in our family by joyful weddings and happy marriages.  Adding the years that my children have been married to their spouses and I have been married to my husband I come up with 71!   And I think we all would agree that the best is yet to be, for the joy grows with time.  God bless our love.

A little siesta

“Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.”  Robert Fulghum

It's a hot Saturday afternoon and two of my grandsons and my husband are upstairs napping.  I was, too, until one of the dogs came to find me to let me know that he needed to go outside.  

Studies show that a short snooze every day is good for your physical as well mental health, but a nap is a luxury for most of us.   My father, who was healthy and active most of his 89 years, napped almost every afternoon after he retired and often took a short nap after lunch when he was still working.  

But in recent years napping for me has been confined to vacations and an occasional Sunday afternoon.  When the children were small - especially when they were infants - we napped when they did if at all possible - even it was sitting in a chair.  My husband and infant son (the father of the two grandsons napping upstairs today) snoozed away on the porch at the family lake house in the summer of 1979.

Napping with the grandchildren brings back warm and happy memories of those days.  I think I'll go back upstairs and join the nappers now.