Dear Reader:

As children weren’t we always seeking reassurance from our parents, as we let go of one stage of development and reached towards the next one, that we would be okay and come out just fine on the other side?

Personally, I think this pattern holds true until the day we pass on to another world…and even then we all want reassurance that loved ones who have gone before us…will be there to help us transition to our new world of eternity.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer it was the dolphin sighting that finally brought peace to me…a nod and a wink from nature…a reassurance that all (in the universe) is as it should be….or as Julian of Norwich says in the title quote:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Lady Julian was born about 1342 and when she was thirty she was expected to die, but on the seventh day, she received fifteen visions, or “showings” that restored her health and brought her “great peace and joy.”

She devoted the rest of the her life to the church… writing down her meditations and contemplations…compiled in a book called Revelations of Divine Love. (one of the earliest known works written by a woman author.)

In one contemplation she describes seeing God holding a tiny thing in his hand, like a little brown hazel nut…or an acorn…so fragile and insignificant that she wondered why it didn’t crumble before her eyes. She understood that the “nut” was the entire created universe, which is as nothing compared to its Creator, and she was told, “God made it, God loves it, God keeps it.”

Every day God finds ways to reassure us, His children, that no matter how insignificant we might feel compared to our Creator…He continues to make us, love us, and keep us in His loving arms.

A God Wink…I had gotten about this far along writing the blog entry (yesterday afternoon) when I took a break and checked my emails…there was one from Honey…no, actually there was one from God.

Little Miracles in Nature

Loved your blog today, as always. Just wanted to share my little miracles of nature as of late. I was up in Asheville with a group visiting Grovewood Gallery. While waiting outside I reached up in this tree with green leaves, picked one, and to my amazement it had a perfect little heart cut out. I used it as a pattern and have made many . Fast forward two weeks and Gabby and I are walking on Pinnacle. The road is covered with fallen leaves. I stopped for a min., reached down, and to my surprise I picked up a leaf that once again had a perfect heart cut out. I’m not sure what this means but I do so love leaves. Just had to share. Have a beautiful day!

Now what are the odds of Honey finding two green leaves…each with a perfect heart-shaped cut-out on each? Isn’t God just amazing in His reassurance of love to us on a daily basis?

And isn’t it also amazing that God can make a little acorn that appears fragile to the touch…but if you have ever experienced one hitting the top of your car (like I did earlier in the week heading home on Highway 17) it sounds like a gun just went off. Perhaps a wake-up call from God to stop daydreaming while driving and instead use our eyes and ears to witness His little daily miracles.

So until tomorrow….Everything is as it should be….and all is well in God’s Hands.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Two days late for Halloween my pink “crusader” cape (against cancer) arrived yesterday with a pink mask. Oh well…that is okay…I will be the pink crusader next October for the Race for the Cure!

*When we were at Mepkin Abbey Tuesday I picked up some note cards at the gift shop…they always have the most beautiful cards. As I was putting them away yesterday morning one fell out and it is the title picture card for this blog on “all shall be well.”

Now I know why it came to my attention. Just heard last evening from Sis Kinney that she is facing  a “catheter ablation” to try and control her afib. Since she passed out during her church service September 11 she has continued having more episodes that leave her tired and unsettled.

So on November 22 Sis will undergo the procedure at the Wake Forest Baptist Health hospital in Winston-Salem. Sis is asking for prayers during this time and she certainly has them. She has been one of the most loyal, devoted blog readers and responders since she first let her presence be known.

We all know the power of prayer so let’s start early with prayers for our Sis and continued prayers for Bobby as he still goes routinely to see his oncologist. We want them back in the mountains together…healthy and ready to snug in for the winter months ahead.

We love you Sis…take care and please let Bobby know he is also in our thoughts and prayers! “All shall be well.”

Dear Reader:

There are just some places that you anticipate seeing items of beauty that mark your day, as well as, your memory…a day of “ordinary” miracles. Yesterday was such a day!

I got home from Mt. Pleasant around 8:00…got a few Halloween photos added to yesterday’s blog and then changed clothes and was ready when Anne and her sister, Sue, arrived. The weather was perfect…cool and a little overcast….now we prayed for a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. The prayer worked for part of the day.. we made the most of it.

The first thing we did was to walk the labyrinth…it is in its glory in early October…and we could see that it was fading in (now) early November but still beautiful in its simplicity and surprises. Like Archibald Rutledge, South Carolina Poet Laureate, once wrote: “It was October and the dying was so beautiful.” The natural grasses and wildflowers were exquisite… adorned only in subtle shades of autumn….browns, yellows, purples, reds and oranges.

Every time for years now, I would tell myself that the next visit to Mepkin Abbey, would result in me walking the labyrinth. But it never happened…until yesterday.

This earlier photo below (taken by another tourist) was probably shot right after the grass was cut last month… by the time we walked it yesterday…it resembled more a “jungle” path in places where a machete would have helped. Nothing we couldn’t handle…but the grass and foliage were high and covering much of the labyrinth.

Anne and Sue soon left me in the dust… literally…I stayed behind taking photos and completely absorbed in my own little world…so in order for this little munchkin to keep up I had to do a couple of cut-throughs on the yellow brick road.

The saving grace yesterday was the most luscious breeze; it made us feel like we were walking through a Kansas wheat field…and overall the mosquitoes stayed at bay.

One had to play the game “miniature worlds” and look beneath the obvious to find the tiny life living under and around the foliage…the true miracles on this ordinary day.

The monarch butterflies were out to play and this little fella sat and posed for me for several moments….breathtakingly beautiful!!

One of the most unusual moths we saw fluttering through the grasses was this beautiful pink moth. Anne looked it up when she got home and told me it was called “Ornate Bella!”  (I emailed her back and said it sure was!…just gorgeous!)

When the light hit the tall grasses and miniature blooms off the wildflowers it was something to behold.

I have discovered in life that when we stop and get down level with the little miracles in life…they spread our joy and surprise as far and wide as bigger miracles.

Near the labyrinth lies the Nine Firefighters Memorial:

Mepkin Abbey Firefighter’s Memorial
The memorial was commissioned by Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner in 2011. Nine cast concrete blocks stand in a circle creating an intimate space of reflection. The memorial is located in the center of a field of Broomsedge with mature live oaks as a backdrop. The design for the memorial was purposely simple and serene. Many visitors have used the stone path to write names and words of remembrance.

I was the first one back (due to a few detours) and as I sat on the welcomed bench and stared up at the tall pines…all I could think of was the amazing history and stories that these trees could tell. Henry Laurens was one of the wealthiest rice planters of the low country with more slaves than almost any other planter, he would be captured, imprisoned in the Tower of London during the American Revolution and later exchanged for Lord Cornwallis at the end of the war.

His son, John, wanted to liberate the slaves and let them fight against the British for their freedom (quite liberal thinking for a noted South Carolina planter’s son)…Henry Laurens is also known for being the first American cremated at a time when it was not a widely accepted practice.

After getting directions to the African-American cemetery we started walking along the path…but it was a long walk and no breeze….and swarms of mosquitoes….so this mini-adventure will definitely have to be delayed until we get some frost to kill the mosquitoes.

 So we got back in the car and went over to the memorial gardens, fountain, and sculptures….Sue said it was here that she could feel the past and the spirituality of the place. It is just so incredibly beautiful…a great place to go when we need to think about our life’s directions at changing intervals along our path.

So until tomorrow…Some of you have already spotted some photos that Anne took yesterday on her Facebook page…but if not please go look at all of them….then truly you see the miracles of nature we all experienced together on an extraordinarily ordinary day! Loved meeting you Sue…we must do another adventure when you return.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Sometimes our greatest adventures start in the most ordinary ways. Last week on Lowcountry Live (a local television show) a special segment was being shown about the most haunted places in the lowcountry. I was half-listening to the stories but suddenly one caught my attention…the African-American cemetery at Mepkin Abbey.

Mepkin Abbey is one of my favorite places to go…it is one of those sacred locations where we can actually feel the spirituality all around us and of course, as a retired social studies school teacher, manna from heaven in the form of rich, cultural history for the eyes and ears.

I mentioned the idea of a mini-adventure to Mepkin Abbey to see the African-American cemetery to Anne and she said it would be perfect timing since her sister, Sue, was coming for a visit and could join us. And to seal the deal…we would engage in the adventure on All Saints Day…November 1. Perfect timing.

To get ready for our trip…I did some research about the cemetery and other culturally hidden treasures… just lying in wait for interested visitors to discover.

My first interest dealt with the idea of sacred shell beads and their significance in African-American culture.

The roots behind decorating family tombstones with shell beads goes far back in ancient cultures and civilizations.

One article included this piece of history in it:

People used to believe that shells were a gift from God due to the intrasacies He used in creating them. The spiral shapes of many shells became a symbol for taking steps closer to God and eventually eternal life. And let’s not forget the pearly gates of heaven that, according to Revelations, are made from a single pearl which of course comes from inside the shells of oysters and scallops. From the mythical, sea shells have become religious symbols.

The first instances that shells were used to adorn graves was in the Bakongo region in Africa. Anthropologists in the 1800s described graveyards where nearly every grave was surrounded by shells of all different types. The Bakongo belief is that the shell encloses the soul and they have a prayer that says, “As strong as your house you shall keep my life for me. When you leave for the sea, take me along, that I may live forever with you.” The shell became the vessel that carried the soul across the big water (or the River Styx) to eternal life. Even today shells are still used by their descendants and their belief is that the sea brought us and the sea shall take us away.

Source: “Why We Place Shells on Tombstones” Eman

In the midst of this research I came across a fascinating project (Seeking) that the noted Gullah artist, Robert Greene, participated in at Mepkin Abbey, along with Father Kline. A “seeking” is a personal quest to find one’s place in this world…for Jonathan Green this translates into art….both visual and poetically written.

“The writings in Seeking celebrate the visionary art of Jonathan Green, a member of the Gullah culture whose body of work affirms the sacred and the spiritual as spaces that are alive. In the Gullah culture, a pilgrimage into the world of nature evokes God’s presence in the dreams of the seeker, and the poems and prose works in this collection celebrate that journey, that faith, and that hope.”

So on this All Saints Day…our adventure will encompass embracing those who came before us and from whom we listen to their spirit…their voices from the past. A special day.

So until tomorrow:

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Pictures of the caped crusader against breast cancer….taking off for another hard-fought day against this formidable enemy!

And of course, we can’t forget that it is the first day of the new month and saying “Rabbit” does bring us good fortune throughout the month and many many blessings. “Rabbit”!

*I can’t believe this…but as I was in the back bedroom getting all my stuff together to go to Mt. P yesterday afternoon I thought I heard something upfront and I did…I caught my lovely friend, Candy, our church’s most amazingly talented artisan in many crafts, sneaking in some bottles I had asked about earlier. One thing that did get destroyed were a lot of my Clemson bottle tree bottles…since I had purchased the Clemson tree at an earlier Colonial Bazaar I thought there might be some bottles left I could buy.

Instead Candy…painted some new ones for me….a donation is coming your way Candy for all the wonderful projects you talented women undertake. Thank you….the best Halloween Treat!

***Hot off the Press at 8:20. Just got in from Mt. Pleasant this morning and here are some highlights of the Dingle/Turner Family Halloween Trick or Trickers….we had a mermaid, a sea horse, a dragon and Captain America…along with two very cute “Boo” dogs…Atticus and Pip!

Eva Cate, the mermaid, and her friend Lilly…with their look-alike little brothers!

And here is Brookie’s little “Boogie Boy”- his first participatory Halloween!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween….all treats and no tricks!

Dear Reader:

Perhaps today, officially Halloween, I might become ‘victim’ to a prank from the grand-kids or receive a “trick” from the universe but no matter…because I have already received enough “treats” to keep me balanced, centered for quite a while.

Obviously Clemson pulling out the victory over Florida State in the ’11th’ hour has got to go down as a Halloween Weekend Extravaganza for all us orange/purple veined Clemson fans. True to the holiday, it was a scary game with all the thrills and chills one might expect in a horror movie…but, thankfully, ending on the highest of notes…victory! WHEW! Clemson woke up just in time from a very scary dream to turn the outcome around.

Watson’s “chainsaw massacre” throws in the final “do or die” fourth quarter took us over the top! It was a long wait for victory in this tough renegade environment (2006) but Saturday there was light at the end of the tunnel.

The great surprise (“delight” )Halloween treat came Saturday afternoon as Eva Cate and I were getting ready to go see STORKS (adorable movie) and we heard this loud sound like a convoy of trucks and it was!

At the same time the mailman rang the doorbell (in the most excitement I have seen on him since he started carrying the mail)…I had a package so he knocked on the door and said, “Do you hear that sound?” I told him yes that Eva Cate had just asked me what it was and his excited response was: “They’re here…the convoy of pick-up trucks is here…your neighborhood’s Hurricane Matthew debris is getting picked up today! They just finished the street next to you”

No sooner were these words out of his mouth than two front loader/excavators came down my street….I found myself waving to them in my excitement and yelling “Welcome!” The convoy of those huge red/black dump trucks (we have all seen around town) were lined up on Country Club Blvd while the small equipment pick-up vehicles went down the separate neighborhood streets and roads… bringing the debris back to them.

Within 15 to 20 minutes….my street looked like it had the day before Hurricane Matthew arrived. A most beautiful, peaceful, welcome sight! It is like starting over with a clean slate. The beauty after the storm. What a wonderful feeling of thankfulness for surviving the storm and a return to “normalcy”… with an added appreciation for what we have.

Honey…I put on my Halloween t-shirt from you to wear to take Eva Cate back home yesterday….love it! And it is true…this grandmother does love all her little ghouls!

This afternoon I will head over to Mt. Pleasant to see the grandchildren in their costumes…Mandy’s neighborhood is having a neighborhood costume parade and I will stick around to help give out some candy. And when we all wake up Tuesday morning…another Halloween will have vanished into thin air…another memory of fun from childhood. Don’t want to miss a minute of it.

*Will be spending Halloween night with the Turners and heading back early Tuesday morning for an adventure with Anne and her sister Sue….a trip to Mepkin Abbey. Can hardly wait! (It will be Wednesday before the Halloween photos can be shared…a lot going on…. including adventures from Mepkin Abbey.

So until tomorrow…tricks and treats are all part of life aren’t they? Perhaps the secret in life is to “trick” our thinking into turning unexpected or unwanted tricks into opportunities to serve and treat others as we would like to be treated.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Mollie shared this adorable memory of little Rutledge on Facebook yesterday…such wonderful memories of our little man…dressed to the hilt.

*On this Halloween morning…two more treats awaited me when ! awoke….two moon flower blooms (been a long time since I have had more than one) and two pink confederate rose blooms together….it’s gonna’ be a great Halloween! Happy Halloween to one and all!

Dear Reader:

In yesterday’s blog entry we were talking about pink stars and super heroes and mentoring roles. In actuality yesterday was spent with Eva Cate as a reward for her earning 5 Stars each day last week at school for listening, participating, sharing, helping, etc!  

Overall Eva Cate has been getting pretty good daily reports but now and then they got a little inconsistent so I told John and Mandy to put her to the test and if she came through she could have a special reward day with Boo. Goal: A Five-Star Week! She did it! Five days…five stars each day – 25 Stars! *And it so happened that Mandy had a five star week at her school too….so I figured we could double reward this….an overnight surprise for Eva Cate and a little break for mom.  (Mandy used some of the time to get her hair done…a nice luxury with two little ones….looking good!)

Mandy dropped Eva Cate off around 11:00 yesterday morning and soon we are off….Continental corner, a little shopping, movies, a walk around the town square for Eva Cate to see all the school children’s Halloween entries. We even stopped by Anne’s to wish her a big Happy (Almost Halloween) Birthday!

Mom and Eva Cate share an angel for a memento of the Five-Star Week.

Look how Eva Cate’s Japanese maple has grown!

A Future Miss Summerville in the making…having fun in Town Square with all the cut-outs.

At Simple to Sublime Samantha found Eva Cate two fun surcies… the coolest print sticker painting book for kids using single, double and triple digit number stickers to complete pictures and odd couple socks…two socks that purposely don’t go together…like Eva Cate’s choice: a Bee and a Bear. They are adorable!

By the time we got in it was starting to get dark so Eva Cate could see the fence Boo sign all lit up, and the front porch pumpkin lit up…a fun way to end the day.

Of course the only deterrent to our outdoor plans were those pesky mosquitoes….I wonder how much it would cost Summerville to rent Jack Frost for about three nights in succession in order to get rid of our malevolent mosquitoes. We need a hard frost….go away mosquitoes.

Eva Cate waited to the last minute to pull off her Halloween trick on me….vampire teeth!

It was a wonderful day….a whirlwind day for the memories and building memories is one of the most important gifts we can leave behind.

So until tomorrow: “I think i’ll just be HAPPY  today” (and I was!)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I simply can’t close the blog without commenting on watching the Clemson Tigers, under Watson, pull off their magic again…and again…and again. (Glad Eva Cate has slept through my disappearing acts from the bed to the den….screaming into a pillow to silence myself.) Yes…I was happy today and late last night. Go Tigers! And I “think I will be happy today watching the re-runs with no stress.”

Dear Reader:

This year for Halloween I had a sort of pink “epiphany.” With the grandchildren so into super heroes….what about Boo Boo dressing up as a super hero who takes on the most dreaded, despicable villain of all? Cancer! (Show the children that the real heroes in life are every day, ordinary people who fight to maintain a life of dignity despite set-backs of all kinds…including cancer.)

I got the idea when I “accidentally” came across this t-shirt on-line. It says it all! I immediately ordered it and it came in yesterday.

As we speak…I am in the process of assembling some “super hero” accessories like a cape and a mask….and getting very excited about a special Halloween life lesson.

I am especially happy today because “Legally Pink”  just went over the new goal of $1500. We did it! Thank you, thank you, thank you for being there for the whole team and helping us achieve our best donation results to date!

In fact our team “LEGALLY PINK” made the TOP 20 TEAMS honor category! Thank you Captain Tommy for all your hard work!

As if the “pink stars” weren’t aligning enough at this point…I came across an article I submitted to the Post and Courier for the 2012 Race for the Cure. I never saw anything about it or heard anything so I just assumed that my article wasn’t chosen for publication.

On a whim yesterday…I typed in “Pink Tails” and up popped the published article. It is getting really “spooky” around my house…Halloween is coming!

I had to dust off my memory when I re-read it yesterday….but it quickly came flooding back. It had to do with another “epiphany” I had while walking the 2012 Race for the Cure with our team… in the form of a realization of a dream that finally came true.

*It was right after this particular race that my cancer started moving and things started going south…I was being treated with more chemo that unfortunately just wasn’t keeping things in check any more. This was the last race before the new medicine came into my existence that (to date) has kept me in the race for life.

Pink tails” dream comes true in another way

OCTOBER 25, 2012

When I was small, I wanted to have “pink tails” desperately. I don’t know how I came up with the idea that “pigtails” were called “pink tails” … it was probably a combination of misinterpretation and seeing other classmates wearing pretty pink ribbons in their hair.

The sad truth was, my mother was widowed at a young age with three small children. She also lost her left hand to bone cancer soon after daddy’s death. There was no way for her to put my hair into “pink tails.” Besides, my hair was so fine that hair barrettes slid out of it like ice cubes melting in my fist.

 Today my granddaughter has the same problem, except that with whatever hair can be gathered, it is put into pigtails. She squeals with delight and I smile contentedly. She is getting to live my childhood dream.

Suddenly, last week it dawned on me, as a woman living with on-going breast cancer, that I, too, get to wear little pink ribbons now … special pink ribbons! It still might not be in the form of pigtails (with chemo treatments), but I can and will wear my pink ribbons as “pink tails” — on the tails of jackets, pockets, blouses, shoes, and caps any given day…just not a Race for the Cure Day.

On Oct. 20, 2012 our team —Chapel of Hope Stories— was attired in all shades of pink for the Race for the Cure. My “once upon a time” fairy dream coming true, as pink ribbons swirled around me on Daniel Island. God does work in mysterious ways!

Rebecca (Becky) Dingle    Summerville

………………………………

So until tomorrow…Let me remind myself on a daily basis that the individual challenges we all face in life are in reality opportunities given us to share life lessons with others who come behind.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I would like to take a moment and thank the residents of Daniel Island for everything they do, in the form of decorating, lemonade stands, water stands, family bands and cheers of encouragement as we walk or run by….they are the best. This year selected homes are up for awards for the most “spirited” in promoting community support to fight breast cancer. I love this top contender!

* Walsh and Mollie ended up in Jamaica for their four-day vacation with three other couples they had planned the trip with many months ago…started out being in the Bahamas but Hurricane Matthew got them transferred to Jamaica….definitely a stroke of luck there I would imagine….though both are wonderful.

Walsh and Mollie were definitely ready for a hiatus….good food, good company, lots of sleep, and new adventures. Here are some photos Mollie sent me Thursday evening.

* As a mom I am SO glad I wasn’t watching Walsh make that jump upfront and personal….middle child risk-taker.  WOW!

*Are you ready for another big God Wink? Since you have just finished this blog entry…you know it is all about “pink tails” and special “pink ribbons” that I dreamed of as a child but discovered as an adult breast cancer walker in the 2012 Race for the Cure.

Honey had emailed me Thursday to let me know she was returning to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope with three friends who had never been…I told Honey I would be with her in spirit…my heart and soul yearned so to go but I understand now that I will go when it is God’s timing and it will be perfect.

When Honey sent the two photos last night from the trip I glanced at the first and marveled that the original picture I left in 2010 is still there…me, Mandy, and newborn Eva Cate.

But it was the second photo and Honey’s comment about this strange-looking pink (comet-tail) colored ray that appeared out of nowhere in the photo of her and her friends in front of the chapel. I gasped…I had told her I would be there in spirit with them…I just didn’t know it would be in the form of a “pink” spirit. God works in mysterious ways!

Dear Reader:

If I could find the perfect job right now, that would make me the happiest, it would be surprising someone with a little “surcie” for being themselves…caring, wonderful people. Now that makes me happy and that is what happened yesterday…but the story starts back in recent history.

If any of you bank at First Citizens in Summerville or the low country area,  you know that these are the times “that try mens’ souls” (and computer illiterate blogger’s souls too.) First Citizens has been completely revamping their on-line banking program to a new digital (super-duper) presentation. The “old” on-line banking program closed for several days last week to complete the transition.

As with most technological conversions…glitches appeared and then some more and then some more and the time-table was extended. Confusion and frustration arose when old customers couldn’t get into the new on-line banking spectacular …with all representative lines blocked for long time periods. Instead, after unsuccessful attempts directions appeared that detoured us back to our individual financial institution for help with new security measures, codes, passwords, time-limits, etc.  Whew!

A nightmare for one and all. But especially for the poor bank tellers who are trying to still wait on customers in the bank and also talk frustrated phone-callers through all the hoops and loops of re-entering their on-line banking accounts. Frazzled is the word of the week I feel sure for these wonderful bank tellers.

Several weeks ago, long before I even knew about the upcoming new on-line banking program…I went to check my account and it wouldn’t open. I tried several more times that day and it froze every time…not letting me in. Now I am a visual learner and particularly when it comes to numbers and finances I need to ‘put my eyeballs’ on the numbers before me while planning my monthly expenditures. I am lost without it.

Gin-g even came over one day to help me….she took the computer seat while I talked to a company representative on the phone asking her why I couldn’t get into my account and we all tried, for over an hour, to get my account open. I was finally told that my computer was basically too obsolete to handle new security measures that were being implemented and I would need to update my computer.

I am just happy when my computer turns on every morning…and I don’t have the money to buy a new computer so I can check my on-line balance. So for the past few weeks…I have felt lost without it. …But then a ray of hope arrived.

First Citizens announced the new digital on-line banking program and told us customers what it would do and assured us we would be amazed. Maybe, I thought, this is my break-through…I will be able to go back in again, once this new system is complete.

Yes and no. It was my break-through (my saving grace)… as far as being eligible again to go in…the problem now was the glitches within the program knocking people out of their old accounts due to new security codes, time-limits on changes, new passwords, etc.

Wednesday morning I woke up with a determined look on my face…I was going to take “Goliath” down …I would get in my account no matter what or how many stones it took! I waited over a half an hour to speak to a voice on the other end of the line two times and both times we would get close and either the phone transmission would fail or some other glitch deprived us of victory.

Finally, as directed,  I called my “financial institution” and Susan Myers, Super-Hero banker esquire, answered the phone. Between customers she and I drew nearer to entering the “sacred” hall of new on-line digital banking. Close…but not in.

Susan suggested we try again yesterday morning when we were both fresh with no or few customers around for her…she said she knew we could do it and she could smell victory. At 8:30 Thursday morning I called…at 8: 40 I was in! The thrill of glory!

So I sat down, wrote my hero a note, grabbed twelve mini-brownies with cute Halloween icing on them from Publix deli, along with some flowers, and headed to my wonderful bank…that contained my even more wonderful new friend…Susan Myers.

When I walked in she was on the phone (with her back towards me so she didn’t see me) and I could hear enough of the conversation to know that she was with another frustrated customer calmly walking and talking him/her through the procedure. “Don’t get discouraged now…don’t give up on me…try looking through your spam for the missing code…you found it…wonderful…we are going to get there.”

When she had time to come up for air and turned around…she spotted me in line and just shook her head in disbelief…a tired smile on her face. This woman has more energy in one little finger than I do in my entire body…and she gives every bit of it to every single customer. She has been way overdue for a little gratitude coming her way and believe me…it is a LOT OF GRATITUDE from me to her.

It is people, like Susan, community heroes in our lovely town of Summerville, that make me a proud citizen of this special hamlet in the tall pines of the lowcountry!

It is refreshing, during these down-right disturbing political times, to look around and see what my dolphin tried to tell me several years ago after being diagnosed with breast cancer…“All is right in the world…the universe is just as it should be…you are all right…now go live your life indeed.”

*If you happen to drop into First Citizens on Main Street in the near future…please look for Susan and tell her Becky says “HI and THANK YOU!”

So until tomorrow…Let us always remember, on the tough days, that God’s plan for our lives always exceeds the circumstances of one day. It will get better.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

My two beauties who brought me joy yesterday morning…bright and early! They helped me celebrate my break-through into my new banking needs spectacular.

Dear Reader:

I caught part of a discussion going on about gratitude and ingratitude within a discussion panel on one of the Hallmark Channels. A young woman was re-telling a story her granddaddy told her…a metaphor about these two types of people who go through life together… with very different conclusions.

There were two old acquaintances who went fishing every month together. One fisherman was filled with gratitude throughout each fishing adventure while the other complained continuously about the weather, the waves, the sun (or lack of) the temperature….the sandwiches….you name it he was never grateful for simply sharing one of moment’s pleasures with an old colleague.

On this particular trip…they were both in the fishing boat but also duck hunting. The fisherman, who was grateful for everything in his life, saw a duck soar overhead, he pulled out his rifle and shot it in mid-air. Screaming with delight he kept asking his gloomy friend if he had just witnessed that spectacular shot… but with no response.

The happy fisherman told his dog to retrieve the duck and bring it back to the boat. The dog obediently stepped out on the water and ran across it, grabbed the duck, ran back across the water and dumped it in the bottom of the boat. There was dead silence until awed pandemonium broke out….“It was a miracle…did you just see that…did you see what MY dog did?”

“See what?” the grumbling, ungrateful fisherman said rudely, “Just our luck…your stupid dog can’t even swim!”

……………………………

There are some things in life that really are, as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “truths that are self-evident.” And the longer I live…I realize these simple truths are also paradoxes within themselves.

For example…one of the purest and simplest of all: “YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE.” There is no getting around the truth of this “self-evident” statement. We see it every day in our passing lives…people who think about other people and helping them end up being helped themselves….”What goes around…does come around.” Send out good/caring and it returns in abundance back at you; send out bad/indifference and unfortunately it does the same…in abundance.

Ingrates live in narrow spaces…they don’t venture out much farther than their nose. They are always the victim when things goes wrong, someone else is always the blame….they never see themselves as their own perpetrator in the ill-fated conclusion to a series of poor personal choices. If they weren’t so darn irritating…they would be downright pathetic.

I have gotten to a place in my life where I can not afford to live life one moment without surrounding myself with joy, gratitude, and love. My main two compounds (that do go together every day for me) are my heart and soul. They both yearn for the same thing…life lived to the fullest for as long as I can love and then love some more. No “party poopers” for me…life is too short. “Give me the simple life.”

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn in life is that we can not let the “ungratefuls” suck the marrow out of our own bones. Like Libby says, “Don’t let anybody ever steal your joy.” Somehow we always think we can change them, show them what grateful living looks like and what happiness it brings…but sadly, like the old disgruntled fisherman, they wouldn’t see a daily “miracle” if it bit them on….well…any part of their body.

If we are truly grateful for 1) waking up 2) thanking God for the day and 3) looking and listening for His Voice and His Signs to guide us… then we are living the life God wanted us to live…not trying to co-exist with a compound that is simply not “compoundable?” (is that a word????)

In James 3: 11 the question is asked:” Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?” 

So until tomorrow…Simple answer: No…not with the same results in the end. Each will only poison the effectiveness of the other. They are not co-habitable…let one go and choose the other…the right one…the grateful one for life. The one who tells God: “Thank You for my life every single day!”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*John sent me this precious collection of Eva Cate photos taken at random and put together on one of the new photo electronic opportunities. As usual…I did “tear” up….grandchildren’s memories are too precious for dry eyes.

(Auto-generated photos on Google Photos)

https://goo.gl/photos/xMFdCgamUjECBzpu5

After watching the video…I just wanted to hold Eva Cate’s hand and watch her sleep. The oldest grandchild sets the perimeter of time for all the other grandchildren who follow, while we grandparents secretly wish we could keep them all in a tiny little corner of our heart in their tiny little bodies forever.

Dear Reader:

Have you ever just been going along in life…living it pretty normally and then suddenly you are filled with such happiness and peace that it is momentarily overwhelming? This doesn’t happen often to me, so that is probably why it is so special…I think it is just a taste of what our arrival in heaven will feel like one day…total immersion in unconditional love that flows through us like water falling from great rocky mountains.

It happened to me early yesterday morning. I was talking to Vickie, my across- the- street neighbor. We always talk lawns, plants, flowers….house upkeep, etc. We love puttering around in our homes and gardens. Our main subject, yesterday, was our shared rose bush at the end of  my driveway. (It got so waterlogged after Matthew that it uprooted (half-way) looking like the leaning Tower of Pisa.) Vickie got it anchored back in and we were talking about how amazing it was…still blooming in spite of all the craziness done to it lately.

The sun was flickering through the trees onto my front lawn and porch…Vickie said that I needed to get a photo of it with the light just right…so I did. In the corner was the beautiful rose bush and the rest of the house was peacefully sedate and happy-looking at the same time.

Suddenly I was filled with such a feeling of love for my home it caught me off-guard. I started walking all over the front, back yards and garden snapping photos….as if seeing everything for the first time again. I was falling in love again…with fall…with home !

Somewhere, in all my hidden delights, lay the thought that I was suddenly aware of a huge benchmark in life… one nearing the end of my personal dreams. Everything I was seeing before me was no accident, but the direct result of something I had planted or done to or for the house and yard earlier in my life.

Whether it was money spent on home renovations, planting seeds, starting a garden or simply watering plants…everything catching my rapt delights had been planned and executed towards this goal of my “dream home” over a lifetime. And now here it was before me.

Come with me and see what I saw yesterday that kept putting smiles all over my face.

Ernie and Lance came yesterday and we cleaned out the fountain, trimmed bushes, they did a lot of weed-eating….Ernie helped me changed light bulbs….These two are my handy men and I really count on them to help me keep my home going. They never disappoint.

Ernie put in the new lights for the deck a few weeks ago…don’t you love them…much more subtle with the downward light but still magical?

Please stop by Marigolds if you haven’t since they moved a few weeks ago or even more lately…I went yesterday and they have such beautiful things in the store and a 60% Fall Sale going on outside the entrance. Look at my new candy cat bowl….filled with candy (that mysteriously disappears each evening…those darn ghosts!)

I reflected on this crazy love that was consuming me yesterday and thought that perhaps it was the universe’s way of paying me back for a rather disappointing start to my favorite season of Fall….(with unexpected medical procedures, diagnoses,  waiting for life-altering results =considerable stress.) Or perhaps it was an epiphany, an insight into everything I had done over many years to bring the house to where it is today. Whatever it was…thank you God…I needed an “Universal Hug” and I got it yesterday.

So until tomorrow:

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* I might have just discovered another epiphany that happened yesterday….since starting Chapel of Hope Stories Part Two…returning on November 23 two years ago (2014)…I just wrote my 700th blog entry with 70, 700 views and 730 daily subscribers/followers (not counting FACEBOOK followers)…I think the stars were aligning yesterday in preparation and I was given the guest of honor seat for a few short hours of observation…perhaps seven?

*A shout-out to Pat (McTeer) Jackson who headed up a local Palmetto team relay breast cancer team last week in Columbia. Their team raised $1200! Way to go Pat!

The Race for the Cure (Legally Pink) donation period ends next Monday on Halloween…the last day of October. Our team is ten dollars shy of our new goal of $1500 this year….confident we will make the leap here on the last hurdle…and thanks for all the donations…and thanks for keeping them coming this past week. What a lovely surprise!

Dear Reader:

Every day I get to see the “Legend of the Confederate Rose” replayed, like in an outdoor drama, for a private audience…me!

You might remember the story (in a nutshell it went like this):

Once the Confederate Rose was pure white. During the Civil War, a soldier was fatally wounded in battle. He fell upon the rose as he lay dying. During the course of the two days he took to die, he bled more and more on the flower, till at last bloom was covered with his blood. When he died, the flower died with him. Thereafter, the Confederate Rose (or Cotton Rose), opens white, and over the course of the two days the bloom lasts, they turn gradually from white to pink to almost red, when the flower finally falls from the bush.

There is so much symbolism with this flower….two days of changing colors, one day of a pure purple/reddish color and then the bloom dies late on the third day.

I have never had anything quite so lovely touch me like this bush….I can hardly wait to rise each morning and check out the pure white blooms and then watch them (over the next two days) change to rose-colored petals. It is a great lesson in change…nothing stays the same…but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as wonderful.

I think one of the hardest dilemmas mankind faces, within the restriction of understanding the universe –  God’s Bold, Beautiful Playground of Life, is knowing when to give up our free will in exchange for God’ Guidance? How long do we struggle to force a new change, only to find the doors and windows locked in that direction? It is only later we know God was trying to re-direct our efforts in another way.

When I came across this story…it made me feel better than I am not alone in struggling with these type answers.

“Destiny is Within Us”

I remember walking to the bus stop one day. Sweat was dripping down my chin, while I gazed upon the faded metal bus-stop sign a block away. I saw an unorganized huddle of bodies. A few sat on the wooden bench, staring through the hazy Plexiglas of the awning. I checked my watch and noticed that I was running ahead of schedule. The bus wouldn’t be coming for at least five more minutes.

In that instant, I heard big tires rolling up behind me, the punched-in sound of a clutch cranking into the floor, the shaking of windows as the tires dipped into a small pothole. I quickly turned my head and saw the bus. There was no traffic to slow it down. I was about a block away and stuck between two fateful options.

The first option was to stand there and surrender my fate to the universe. I could repeat to myself, “Oh, well. I guess the universe didn’t want me to catch the bus today,” and regurgitate that famous cliché, “I guess it just wasn’t meant to happen.”

The second option before me was to take my bag, hold on to it a bit tighter, and start running up the block. This option didn’t guarantee that I would catch the bus, but it engaged my free will so that it did not have to breathe in the exhaust of resignation.

Contemplation on choice is sometimes the toughest part of any day. The universe definitely provided some context that made it a bit harder for me to catch the bus, yet still, I could act to change the situation. Sure, that bus came ahead of schedule, but my reaction was what was in my control and what my yoga practice has taught me. My reaction could have been to blame it on the universe, to fall into the trap of “I guess it wasn’t meant to happen.” Or to pick up my heels and start running.

Each moment of life, we set into motion a series of succeeding moments that will ultimately shape our future. It is my choice to either leave my destiny up to the universe or choose to shift my awareness and embrace the knowledge that I am the universe. When this happens, what we previously blame on an outside entity, or “destiny,” is actually something we understand as within us.
The choice is mine. The choice is yours. The choice is ours. 

1) Lachlan looks a little “befuddled” and slightly “fearful” (at first) as Rutledge allows him to stay on the firetruck when he is caught climbing on big bro’s truck.