Dear Reader:

As I walked out of the house yesterday morning, the early sun’s rays hit the (now blooming) Bradford Pear tree sending shadows of its branches across the yard. It seemed to be the perfect metaphor for my return to the origin of the blog post.

While filling many of you readers in on the impetus leading up to the blog….it has been a cathartic and insightful prelude for me to what, not only lies behind, but ahead in my path through life.

So many emotions have re-surfaced that I thought were packed up and hidden safely away in my heart and soul. They are still nearer the surface than I suspected. However, they no longer frighten me, instead I see them as benchmarks guiding me to higher roads with better views of the whole….no longer just the parts.

Today’s blog dates back to August 14, 2010….a week after the first blog was posted. It was time to share my extraordinary revelation to others outside a few close friends and family members. It still is.

I was reminded of the story last Sunday when we went around the room, each reading a line of scripture, from Psalm 139-my line read.

 I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.

There were a few gasps  around the room, from the blog readers, and then grins with the two words: God Wink.

“Hold My Hand”  August 14, 2010

“Hold my hand,” came the voice in the darkness. The date was May 28, 2008. I had been tossing and turning all night. My mind was in a jumble. I should be praying but my thoughts were so scattered I couldn’t concentrate long enough to complete a mental sentence. “Hold my hand!‘ This time the voice was louder and more demanding. My brother, Ben, was spending the night so that he could take me to the hospital at 5:30 the next morning for a biopsy and “partial mastectomy “combo.” I would have to arrive early so I could have an emergency blood transfusion before surgery…due to severe anemia. Risky business.

“Ben…?” I called out thinking he had come into the den where I was trying to sleep on the sofa. Nobody was there. With the third “HOLD MY HAND!” I finally understood Who was speaking. My silent cries of “Tell me Lord what to do” had been answered. My mind had been fixated on the irrelevant mundane check-lists of life. (Is my will clear enough? Why didn’t I put a new roof on the house and fix that plumbing in the back bathroom? Will the “children” be okay if I don’t return from surgery? Why didn’t I buy that burial plot a couple of years ago? )

All these trivial emotion cogitations consumed my thoughts and energy. My heart was racing, my mouth was dry, and my head felt as heavy as a bowling ball. But with that third demand to “Hold my hand!” a peace crept over me and minutes later I was sound asleep with my hand extended… draped over the back of the sofa.

A few hours later when I went to the restroom to brush my teeth I noticed that the fingers on my right hand were clinched…as if they were still holding on tightly to Someone. I literally had to un-peel each finger. This incident would be the first of many signs along my journey…that I have come to call “God’s Little Winks“…a God Who lets you know His Presence not only exists, but manifest itself when the soul is deeply troubled and/or needs uplifting.

Obviously I survived the surgery…but the journey was just the beginning. On the second day of my hospitalization, a friend from church, Joan Semle, stopped by to see me. She was a volunteer at the hospital and had kindly helped me through the pre-surgery tests and procedures. She brought me a beautiful book but it was her own story that opened my consciousness to a new spiritual dimension growing out of this experience..

She started the conversation by saying that something very strange and unusual  happened to her on the way to the hospital that morning and it involved me. I remember staring back at her curiously over an array of bandages on my chest. She began the story. She had stopped at a  red-light leading into the hospital when (for lack of a better term) she had a vision.

She and her recently retired husband, Bob, had gone to Italy earlier that summer as a retirement celebration. They had visited the Sistine Chapel and marveled at the murals by Michelangelo.

Suddenly right there in her car on a hot May morning, she saw the mural- Adam’s Creation– the powerful wall painting depicting  Adam’s and God ‘s attempt to re-connect….to touch hands.But this time it was my face that was reaching for and holding God’s Hand. Tears ran down my face as I told her about the voice in the dark. I knew then that Something Bigger than human rationality could explain…was at “hand.”

I want to let you know dear readers, that this is the first time I have revealed this story, outside of close family members and friends. But Honey’s gift to me yesterday, the plaque that reads “Peace is when you find your sanctuary” awakened me, once again. to the reason for this blog’s creation. HOPE. I am finding peace, sanctuary, and purpose…through the mystical connections radiating from this endeavor and my hope for of us is that we find a deep communal understanding of our universal bond. I hope we learn to hold hands when words fall short.

……………………………….

So until tomorrow….How can we ever be lost when the One with the Lantern ….the “Light” leads us along our path. Reach out and hold His Hand if you stumble in your darkness or listen for His call..

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Yesterday was so special…I had not one, but three wonderful friends visit me unexpectedly and makes wishes in the fountain.

First came Mary….my old mail carrier. She had ten minutes, along her route to spare, and wanted to check up on me. I showed her around and took her to the garden and fountain where she turned around and tossed the coin perfectly in the fountain. (No wonder she was inducted into SC State Women’s Hall of Fame for basketball.)

Then Jo and Colby stopped by with amazing gifts….one they were saving for next October…but like Jo said….we don’t wait now to give gifts….today is a gift day. (Will share them with you tomorrow…amazing!) Oh…how I love those two special people in my life!)

Dear Reader:

This was the first photo to enter the chapel of hope stories blog. Little did I know that hot day in August of 2010….that the rocking chair Honey gave me at the baby shower for Mandy would come in very handy….three more little spirits were just waiting on their arrival date.

It is now August 8…and the second blog is about to be published. I simply called it: My Story. (August 8, 2010)

Every journey needs a starting point and every journey has a story. This is mine. Two years ago, three weeks after my daughter Mandy’s wedding, I was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Since then life has been a roller coaster ride, both emotionally and physically…but here I am entering my story on a “blog” that I didn’t even know existed two years ago. So life is good-you never know what is just around the turn in the road! I can honestly say that I have had more “wondrous” moments in the last two years than all the years leading up to it. Life is funny that way. I think the difference is my ability to recognize these moments now.

My unexpected visit to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in Trust, NC is one of those wondrous moments. (Upon reflection, these miraculous undertakings have all stemmed from friends and family’s magnanimity towards me in the form of time and adventure.) In fact, I have thought that if I ever write a book about my travail through this unknown frontier called Cancer, it should be titled: The Escapades of a One-Breasted Bandit.The title is pretty self-explanatory except perhaps for the “bandit’ part. You see, I realize everyday when I wake up, I have “stolen” time once again.

* Update: Today  the title would have to be changed from “one” to “none” breasted bandit and I was still capitalizing Cancer during that blog…I was just a few days away from my meeting with the young girl who told me her grandmother’s story about never capitalizing cancer because it didn’t deserve any respect…it should always just be known as “little c.” And it still is today.

On July 26, 2010, almost two weeks ago (from this second blog) I found myself rounding a new turn in the road with my good friend, Honey Burrell. She had met me earlier in the day in Saluda, NC where I followed her to her mountain home-only to be told that we were immediately leaving again so don’t unpack…we were heading towards St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope. The skies looked threatening but Honey was determined that this rendezvous was pre-destined. (Hard to shake that Presbyterian upbringing lingo or as one pastor called us, “The Frozen Chosen” See, we do have a sense of humor.)

A little over two hours later, as the sun broke through the clouds, we arrived. Along the way, Honey shared with me a brief overview of how the chapel came to be. It was built by a cancer patient who had been diagnosed in 1981 with cancer and told that there was no hope for a cure and given a terminal prognosis.

So she (Beverly Barutio) decided that this was not the way to go out…she took herself off chemo, prayed hard, and decided to enjoy what life she had left fully. She should have been the pin-up girl for the movie: Eat, Pray, Love. In a prayer to God, following her decision to stop treatments, she promised if given time, she would repay His generosity by leaving something behind in His name for other people in need. In 1998 the chapel was completed. This remarkable woman died in 2002- 23 years after her terminal prognosis. 

When you arrive at this little chapel, it looks like a slightly enlarged doll house. It is built beside a beautiful little stream that surround the entire area. If a brook can “babble”  then this one does…slow, soothing, and melodious. Wild flowers and butterflies are all in abundance. The butterflies seem to be dancing for the sheer joy of simply being alive. The fresh smell of cut green grass after a rain envelopes your senses. Is there a better smell in the world? Perhaps someone should make a perfume of it.

Opposite the chapel lies a rugged wooden cross upon a large stone. A plaque reads: Fear Not Tomorrow-Jesus is already there. (I found/find this inscription comforting.)

Outside the chapel is a welcome sign. There is scripture and words Stop, Rest, Reflect…and that is exactly what we did. There are only four (love-seat size) wooden benches inside with a cross engraved on each one. So basically the chapel holds eight people. Mike, Honey’s husband, jokingly, said that he wanted his funeral service performed there…he could fill up the church!

Beautiful stained-glass designs reflect the afternoon’s sun. There is a place to sign in and one sees several news articles about the chapel and its builder. There is a place to pray, an open Bible, and an alter filled with paraphernalia. It was that altar that consumed my thoughts and imagination as I listened to Honey reading some of the articles off the walls.

Visitors had left trinkets behind…as a gift to the chapel and its creator. But why? Honey’s voice became a distant drone that sounded far away as my imagination started soaring. A baseball…why a baseball? Immediately an idea came to me “Build it and they will come“- was that the owner’s intention…was he/she a fan of the movie Field of Dreams?  An empty pack of cigarettes? Perhaps  the owner was fighting lung cancer or simply knew he/she needed to give up smoking to live a life more fully?

Toys, cards, pictures, flowers, jewelry…the objects on the altar seemed to multiply as I began counting them. I suddenly became consumed with the knowledge that I would walk away from here and never know the stories behind the ornaments. There was a sign-in-book but I realized as I glanced back through it-no stories or comments were mentioned about the left articles. A sense of sadness fell over me. 

I only had my pocketbook with me so what could I leave behind to explain what this experience had meant to me? What was a gift that I could leave…what was something very precious to me? My eyes fell upon a pacifier that someone had left on the altar and then I knew. 

I opened my pocket book and took out a recent photograph of myself, my daughter Mandy, and my most cherished gift of all…my new granddaughter Eva Cate.

It is Eva Cate who has given me so much joy that I fight to see and spend another day with that beautiful gift of life. On the back of the photo I wrote: “Love is the child who shares our breath; Love is the child who scatters death.” – William Blake

It was my daughter Mandy who, upon hearing of this inspiring  adventure, suggested the idea of using a blog to search for the owners of the trinkets. Immediately I knew that this was the project that I had been searching for since my diagnosis…a way to connect with other “journeymen” (and women) whose paths have crossed at this little chapel of hope. 

So, I conclude, dear readers, with a request for you to share your story if you have been to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope or if you decide to do so in the future. A Gullah expressions says: “When a person dies, a story goes up in flames.” Let us pray that this doesn’t happen before the stories are told.

Remember…” Good beginnings make for good endings”….and I am all about good endings!

……………………….

 So until tomorrow….the memories continue and the dots are connected. 

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

More additions to the garden: Susan’s rose bush and hangers for my gerber daisies starting to reappear and bloom.

Dear Reader:

Maybe it was the photos from yesterday’s blog depicting St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in Trust, North Carolina,  but suddenly last night I grabbed my “little c” scrapbook (dusted it off) and began going back through it again. Isn’t hindsight so much easier than the day- to-day struggles… wondering and praying about what the future will bring…or not.

I had only been “at it” (writing) the daily blog for a few months when I got a call from local reporter, Leslie Cantu (a doll baby) saying that a friend, Cindy Ashley, had told her that she might want to give me a call and find out more about a contest going on between me and Scheherazade. A new twist on an old story.

I got the call and told Leslie to come over if she liked and I would explain the contest to her. It was the “beginning of a great friendship.”

I have, also, heard from several of you who started reading the blog just a couple of years ago or even later….who were wondering about how it all got started too. Then while I was looking through the scrapbook Friday evening….I noticed that the ‘human interest’ story that Leslie published for the local Summerville paper was dated March 9, 2011.

It has been five years since I started the storytelling contest between myself and the fictitious Scheherazade.  Five years! At the time I thought it would be a miracle if I could just live long enough (1002 days and nights) to tell one more extra story than our famed Arabian storyteller to beat the record.

So starting today….for the next three days….we will go backwards to when and where it all began…  the history of this little blog…so the future will materialize more clearly based on everything leading up to it.

And oh how plans change. Here is the first blog written-August 7, 2010…..these were my goals and dreams….of which none turned out the way I thought.

Chapel of Hope Stories– First Day-the blog goes out (I was terrified)

*You might need to stop and put on your reading/magnifying glasses….I took photos of my printed copy and it is a little wavy….but hopefully you can get the gist of what that first blog looked like…

My proverb was right...”It (does) take a thousand voices to tell a single story.” And thanks to all of you the stories have kept coming. But, to my disappointment, I never got (but a small handful of) responses from visitors to St. Jude’s Chapel telling me what drew them there and perhaps what they left behind on the altar and why.

So the little chapel has been the impetus to my on-going blog and a whole new life but the on-going correspondence between people visiting the chapel and the blog has never materialized to the extent that I once hoped for…

Instead the blog tells stories of us mere mortals and our struggles to learn and grow each day. I think Beverly Barutio would approve of us using her chapel as a role model for our own spiritual strength along our journey…especially since this little chapel in the woods has provided refuge from wanderings for years. It sure provided one for me….but that’s another story for another day.

In this old newspaper article (dated five years ago) you can get a better understanding of all that  happened preceding the birth of the blog and the storytelling contest….plus it is much easier to read.

Becky Dingle tells stories. At Alston Middle School, she was the “teacher with 1,000 stories,” the one who taught social studies through tales of the past.

She’s also a cancer survivor, a recent addition to her life story.
And now she’s telling her stories to a greater public, as a blogger who writes one story a day, every day, until she reaches her goal of 1,002 stories – one story more than the fabled Scheherazade told to save her life.

Telling stories may or may not stave off cancer the way Scheherazade’s stories stalled the king’s plans to behead her, but if Dingle reaches her 1,002nd tale, it will be on the fifth anniversary of her cancer surgery, a remarkable aligning of the stars that Dingle takes as a sign.

“It’s been a life-altering experience, starting this blog,” she said.
Like so many life-altering events, Dingle didn’t exactly start out with a plan to write a story a day.

She discovered she had breast cancer in May 2008, shortly after her daughter’s wedding. Friends and family were noticing how much weight she seemed to have lost, and she at first brushed them off with exclamations of how fortuitous it was to lose weight right before the wedding.

Eventually they pushed her to see a doctor. Two days after her doctor’s appointment, she was in surgery. The prognosis was not good…it appeared to be a type of cancer that is treatable to some extent but not normally curable It has a tendency to keep returning.

Dingle felt like she needed to do something.  She just wasn’t sure what that something was.
Then her friend Honey Burrell took her to the Chapel of Hope in Trust, N.C.

The chapel was built by cancer survivor Beverly Barutio in the small community of Trust, about 30 miles northwest of Asheville. It’s a small, almost dollhouse-like structure, Dingle said, but exquisitely beautiful and filled with Beverly’s spirit.

Visitors have left totems – a baseball, letters, photos, a baby’s pacifier – with meaning known only to them. Dingle was curious about the stories behind these items, but she didn’t act on that curiosity at first. Then, her daughter suggested that the stories at the chapel were collectively what she had been searching to tell.
That’s when Dingle started writing about her experiences at the chapel and collecting stories of others’ experiences.

Initially, she intended the blog merely to share stories of the Chapel of Hope. She left note cards at the chapel asking visitors to reply with their tales of what brought them there.
Replies started off slowly, so Dingle began writing  her own stories to fill space. (The stories might be triggered by something she overheard at the store or a comment made by a friend at lunch…) .
“I kept thinking I was just filling in until people started writing back,” she said.

Then she ran into an old acquaintance who said she’d been reading the blog and noted that Dingle had “always been the teacher with 1,000 stories.”

Something clicked.

Dingle decided she would write 1,002 stories to beat Scheherazade’s 1001 Arabian Nights’ Tales.. It was Aug. 31, so she went to an online calculator to figure out what the date would be after 1,002 days and the answer leapt out at her. May 29, 2013. Exactly (to the day) five years after the initial surgery and prognosis.

What’s most surprising to those who learn of her goal is that she doesn’t worry about what she’ll write each day. She doesn’t feel pressure to meet a deadline, she said.
Instead, she wakes up each day filled with excitement and joy… wondering what she’ll discover to write about.

Dingle said joy is the most pervasive new feature of her life post-surgery. She just doesn’t have time to deal with negative people in her life anymore, she said.

She herself feels like all her perceptions are heightened.
“I’ve always been a happy person, but not this depth of happiness,” nothing like what she experiences now.
She also sees new depth in the stories she tells. Now she sees the morality/spirituality in tales she once told her students purely for historical lessons.

Dingle said she doesn’t dwell on why she got cancer. She thinks the younger patients, those who are working and have young children, are far worse off than she. Her heart breaks for them.
She’s thankful for her supportive family and friends and that she has the opportunity to work with schools on special projects even in retirement.

She’s looking forward to the spring, hopeful that as the weather warms more people will visit the Chapel of Hope and send their stories to her. In the meantime, she’s got plenty of tales to tell. Visit her blog at chapelofhopestories.com.

……………………………………….

So until tomorrow….”Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

• Even though I have been going down memory lane….the present persistently pulls me back. When I first started the blog I had one grandchild….Eva Cate and today I have four grandchildren. Isn’t that a miracle….how can people not believe in miracles?
• Eva Cate had a girl’s day out with mommy Friday. She got to tour her school for next year as a big first grader (can she really be starting first grade?) at James B. Edwards. Mandy said she was most excited about all the playground equipment going in for next year. (That’s our girl) Later John and Mandy took her to the movies….a great way to end her spring break.
• And then there’s our little lucky leprechaun, Lachlan, who turns one on St. Patrick’s Day. Boy…does that bring back memories from last year! Mollie got some pictures of the birthday boy at Sullivans Island.
• Mollie said that Lachlan is the cuddly one and Rutledge the “ham”….it takes all kinds to make up this old world!
• 

Anne took her nephew, Andy, and his girlfriend, Kaitlyn, to Dukes in Ridgeville to show them some real southern cooking. She brought me back a plate and everyone stayed for a few “libations” and sweets.

It was such a beautiful night…no mosquitoes, or gnats swarming…just cool breezes out on the deck as a South Carolina crescent moon welcome these two University of Maine students to the state on their spring break.

I gave Andy and Kaitlyn a lantern and told them they had to enter the magic moon gate through the circle, then follow the garden path to the fountain and each throw a penny in for good fortune. They were quite successful……

Dear Reader:

A little before seven o’clock yesterday morning I was checking emails and responses when I glanced out the window and saw the most beautiful sunrise with colors of pink and orange unveiling.

I threw on some jeans, grabbed my Iphone and snapped the title photo. After taking the picture I just marveled at the beauty around me…the Bradford Pear is ready to burst open at any second, it appears, and my other flowering trees surprised me overnight with this spectacle of loveliness.

It looks like snowflakes falling from heaven when the wind blows…what a delight to the soul!

The other day I read an article that made me pause and think. A young mother was lamenting the fact that with so many pictures being taken now of her family and children growing up….that they have lost their significance….a “dime a dozen.”

She gave a personal example of her own mistakes in this area. She was taking photos of her toddler at a petting zoo and was so intent on capturing the right picture that later, upon observation of the photos, she realized she had missed the human moments of her daughter squealing in delight and wanting her to get down to her level and see the animals through her eyes. (Not standing away observing life from a distance with a camera.)

Last Saturday, when I took Jakie over to play with his cousins and (of course) was clicking away with my Iphone, Rutledge grew exasperated and told me in no uncertain terms to “Put that in your pocket BOO BOO (pointing to the Iphone) Put it in your pocket!” “Play with me!”

Out of the mouths of babes. (So I put it in my pocket…and well…took sneaky photos when Rutledge wasn’t looking.) *I think grandmothers get a special “pass” on photos but Rutledge is right. Some memories should be kept in the heart and mind….not on the computer.

Perhaps I will stick to photos of nature and even then….I can only capture one small visual moment….not the feelings that accompany my new love affair with nature…how it makes me happy beyond measure.

When I discovered this poem….I felt like it perfectly “fit” what I was feeling yesterday… surrounded outside my window by the beauty of the lowcountry in spring…accompanied by the promise of sunrise and another day of life.

It’s A Brand new Day

It’s a brand new day
For new hopes,
New dreams,
New thoughts to pen,
New hopes to make life worth while;
New corners to turn
New smiles to smile.
Rise up
To greet this day,
Touch the hand of a friend
Along the way.
Let your laughter ring out loud,
Like the roar of thunder,
Then write a poem
To be tucked under
Someone’s pillow
Tonight.

………………………….

Aha! A challenge….here’s a little “Dingle Jingle” to take with you through the day today.

It’s All About YOU

Sharing moments of life

delight us all.

We see in others

the universal call

…That we are alike ….more, not less

We just want to give life our best.

Some days we laugh and others cry

Sharing feelings from – “Hi” to “Bye”

You readers are such a loyal band

Who have watched me grow…holding God’s Hand.

We share stories on earth and some above

But the secret of the blog is…

It’s about LOVE! (for you!)

…………………………..

So until tomorrow….Thank you readers for starting each day with me….a brand new day…filled with scattered thoughts and endless possibilities.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Yesterday I was given a wonderful gift by Ann Beard Shahid, through her friend Bob Kaplan, who took these photos of my beloved chapel in the woods. (Spring Creek and St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope)

Susan and Marcia….Ernie got the headboard put together yesterday you sent last week.…I love it.…just perfect! What an amazing gift!

I planted this beautiful dwarf azalea yesterday called Autumn Lilac….don’t you love the pink streaks in it.

Dear Reader:

It took me a good part of my life (to date) to distinguish solitude from loneliness. And oh what a difference there is!

Once I understood that we are each connected in this universe to all other living things…to Something bigger than ourselves…an importance piece of the whole picture…I have never felt a deep loneliness again. Our lives are individually and uniquely paramount to this thing we call life.

There is no separation….just connection.

These days I seek solitude….if I go too long without a chat with my soul I feel off-kilter…like the nomadic tribe in Africa that would stop at intervals along their travails to wait for their souls to catch up with them.

In today’s society… with Iphones becoming another appendage connected to the human body ( not even listing all the other high-tech gadgets to help us communicate with each other 24/7) people are lonelier than ever. What is slowly sinking in to people of all ages is that twittering, emailing, texting (as far as I can go) stops short of fulfilling human relationships….because there is no human contact.

Even when you see my nature/ garden photos….you might admire or like a certain flower but there is no way you can feel what I felt holding, it, planting it (feeling the rich soil in my hands) and talking to it….encouraging it to grow tall and strong. I know each flower, shrub, and tree in my yard…and also their personalities.

…Who likes a lot of water, who likes a little, and who just wants to be left along for about a week before taking more liquid nourishment.

*Gerber daisies demand lots of water! (It’s a good thing they prefer water to “stronger” drinks or “gerbers” would have to attend AA on a regular basis.)

We have all felt bouts of loneliness in our lives, even in a crowd….but solitude is something we seek  because the divine spark within calls to us when we have gone too long without conversing with ourselves through God.

In Amit Awakin.…Sherry Turkel, also, shares her thoughts on the importance of solitude and its importance is building relationships.

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to know enough about yourself and who you are, and be comfortable enough with that. That way, when you are with another person, you’re not trying to make that person into somebody you need them to be in order to buttress a fragile sense of your own self. You can actually turn to a person and see them as another person, and have a real relationship with them

(The longer I observe relationships the more I agree whole-heartedly with this author….if we can’t be by ourselves for any length of time contentedly, instead of depending on some one or some others to define our identity…we are in for a long, hard journey through life.)

…The capacity to be in a relationship requires the capacity for  genuine solitude. One of the gifts of a fruitful childhood is that we learn this capacity for successful solitude. And we learn it, paradoxically, by a caretaker being with us, but able to leave us a little bit of space.

...I remember walks with my grandmother to Macy’s in Brooklyn. We would just be quiet together. Every once in a while there’d be a word, but we were just side by side in our thoughts, and sharing a thought once in a while, and you knew that there was someone there protecting you as you learned to think your own thoughts.

People have many different models of what that is: sitting together sewing, reading, playing, giving a child a bath and then letting them have the privacy of their thoughts. These are the moments of childhood where children are not abandoned, but they learn to be alone with themselves.

It is the impetus to forming later relationships. . If instead of that, we put newborns and toddlers in a baby bouncer that has a slot for an iPad or an iPhone or a laptop, they’re always mirrored by some other outside thing. Something non-human with no human contact. They’re not brought back to their own self and their own resources…to their own mind and imagination.

I went over to Anne’s to pick up a new book we are studying in our Sunday School class. It appears to be right in line with our thoughts today. The title & sub-title say: So Long Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us.

We started talking about some of our own insecurities…one we share in common is finances. That particular category in life makes both of us uneasy and feeling very insecure. 

Anne is going through what I did last summer….a large renovation of her house and garage which requires dipping into savings you hoped to avoid. It is quite nerve-wracking…because renovations almost always cost more than predicted.

We, humans, relate financial savings to security and it is hard to let go of that life-line and put our trust in God that we will be provided what we need. Financial upheavals still make me want to run hide under the covers with a pacifier in my mouth.

From what I’ve already read….I think this book is going to be very helpful in using  solitude time to express our fears of insecurity to God while asking Him to help us trust in Him to lead us through the valleys of insecurity when we reach them.

*Both of us feel very secure about gardens and flowers…..here are some examples from Anne’s yard.

……………………….

So until tomorrow: “Loneliness is the poverty of self: Solitude is the richness of self.” May Sarton

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*”Look how my garden grows” If I ever get lonely I can open my bedroom door to my deck and there I am in a matter of seconds looking out at my garden!

Dear Reader:

Yesterday was exactly seven days since I had left to help keep Jakie and Eva Cate in Mt. Pleasant…four days there and three at my house with little Eva.  Tuesday night I literally ‘hit the wall.’

I started off in the lounge chair where I promptly fell asleep around 10:00 while watching television. Around 4:00 a.m. I was startled awake and sat wondering why I had the worst crick in my neck EVER and what was I doing in the lounge chair.

I was still pretty disoriented so I flipped off the television (why don’t the networks play the Star-Spangle Banner anymore at midnight?….That used to help everyone, who had fallen asleep in front of the television, get up and go to bed?) I think we should start a petition to get it re-instated.

Anyway, I digress, I was too tired to make it to the bedroom so I flopped on the sofa and slept there until 6:00. This time when I woke up I made it to the back bedroom, not even bothering to turn down the sheets….just sleeping on top with a blanket over me.

Of course by the third move I had awakened myself and lay in bed until 7:00 when I gave up… and got up.

During that hour, however, I thought about how tired I must have been and then an epiphany came to me. God must have rested on the seventh day because He had grandchildren too! A week of babysitting will drain even the spiritual energy out of you.

Can;t you just picture these thoughts coming from God after a week of creating AND babysitting?

(“Enough with the oceans, seas, stars, mountains, valleys, and animals….just a good night’s rest PLEASE” ….Now where is Michael and Gabriel…they were both here just a minute ago….and that Lucifer…sometimes I wonder what in the world he will be like when he grows up…so mischievous.”)

It is nice to be able to have the best of both worlds….because I do miss Eva Cate snuggling next to me when she’s gone….we always hold hands when we go to bed and on several occasions wake up still holding them. I do miss all the snuggling and kisses and hugs from all the grandchildren…it is very addictive and draws me back in every time. I am so blessed and I know it.

It is amazing how rest changes our perspective on everything in life….I do believe our soul needs rest as much as our physical body. But the greatest miracle of all is waking up.

So until tomorrow: “Rest and be Thankful!” William Wordsworth

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Look at these little cutie daisies…what a beautiful addition to the garden! They just make you smile!

Dear Reader:

Isn’t it sometimes the simplest things that bring us the most joy? While planting the Easter lollipop seeds Monday afternoon with Eva Cate….I noticed “gobs” of buds on the state flower…the yellow jessamine vine. I always thought late February was its special time but this year, surprisingly with El Nino, it has waited until now to ‘do its thing.’

Just seeing that bright yellow bloom and a whiff of that intoxicating sweet smell, while the warm sun beat on my back..made me realize that for us .spring was here right now in this moment….and the thought brought me such joy! A little girl holding Joaquin and Daffodil blooms to plant and seeds to watch emerge… kept the joy coming.

Eva Cate went with me to return a book to Timrod Library and asked if she could go to the children’s section while I was returning my book. I agreed. Later when I found her it brought back so many wonderful memories of the libraries I grew up with…the wonderful aroma of old books filled the air…what a lovely scent!

The sun’s rays from the large windows hit the dust “bunnies” sending them swirling around like aerial dancers. Dust and books….the way a library should look and feel.

The new spring Azalea magazine was out (So excited…don’t you love it?) and a new magazine called: Re-Invent: Redefining the Fulfilled Life After 50. (Sounded like my kind of magazine)

A woman walking by told me her good friend was the editor and they were so excited about this new magazine. The editor’s name is Linda Waterman and the email address is: [email protected] Here is an excerpt from the first ‘Letter from the Editor.’

“Is there anything more beautiful than Spring in Charleston? It’s as if everything awakens from winter sleep and new life arises from the cold. At reINVENT Magazine we love celebrating new seasons. Join me won’t you as the pages of ReINVENT capture your imagination and excite you with thoughts of exploring your own unique gifts, abilities, talents, and skills in this season.

…”My daily journal says on its cover. “Do More of What Makes You Happy.” It is time to bring our dreams and the things we love, to life again.”

On the initial cover is author, Mary Alice Monroe, sharing her personal story and journey… as life and new opportunities just get better with age.

These days something as simple as seeing painted glass iced tea, lit up by the sun’s rays through the slants in the planks, makes me smile…now the painting really does look like southern iced tea!

So until tomorrow….(Shirley, Anne’s wonderful neighbor/friend sent this poem through her to me….now I want to share it with you….Thank you Shirley!!!)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Jo Dufford sent this beautiful link to start this glorious morning right….take two minutes to watch…you won’t regret it.

Dear Reader:

Eva Cate and I have been playing and living with the fairies since she arrived. Yesterday we picked up a couple of new accessories for the fairies but the hardest thing to find is the fairy figurines themselves.

Like the  nice lady at Marigolds told us… the fairies have a way of “disappearing” right off the table and are never seen again. (Eva Cate was quite impressed.) So we had to get creative and add little Christmas angel figurines (thanks Pam) and miniature dolls from the Christmas closets.

When Eva Cate woke up this morning she told me that the fairies had come to her in the night and made her an honorary fairy by putting a red mark between her eyes….(actually it looks like the same mosquito bite she has had there for a few days….but far be it from me to cast any doubts on the power of believing in what we can’t see…..)

Eva Cate and I were spring cleaning, bathing the weathered fairies and setting up different scenes and homes for them on the deck.

It was also time to plant the magical Bunny Rabbit lollipop seeds. This year the “instructions said that for the second year you only have to plant one seed in a cup for one large lollipop” (I know I am cheating..but the dentist will thank me.).

So until tomorrow:  Keep the magic alive for as long as possible….for me that means forever! The best magic in life is how it all started-Creation. Creating you and me.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Another benchmark for Eva Cate….she ran and leapt  on the swinging rope with no help, started pumping those long thin legs and was swinging with no assistance . A personal taste of freedom. No pushing….just exhilarating soaring!

Dear Reader:

When Honey finished her personal “Race for the Cure” for MS like mine for breast cancer (but nowhere near as long) she told me about a story she knew I would love and all the people one woman has touched through her story….called “The Gathering Table.”

Honey ordered a copy and started reading immediately….loving it. As I read the editors’ introduction on amazon…I thought it summarized the story perfectly.

Here is an excerpt to this marvelous book and an amazing woman’s leap of faith to surround herself with the support of friends and good food and wine.

Just back from her latest adventure at a cooking school in Italy, Ronda Giangreco was a healthy, vibrant woman busy planning her next big dinner party. She and her husband had spent the day sampling wines in the Napa Valley with friends. Life was good. One day later she was a disabled woman. A diagnosis of sudden onset Multiple Sclerosis would be difficult for anyone to accept. But for Ronda and her husband it was a particularly cruel twist of fate. MS had killed his mother. Told she might not be able to walk for much longer, she asked herself the question, “…then where should I walk now?” Her answer – to the kitchen!

As an avowed “foodie”, she had always found her joy in front of a stove. But when she made the audacious vow to her husband that she would create a big Italian feast every Sunday night for an entire year as a means of warding off this disease, he thought she had lost her mind. It began with a simple idea. What if she tried to cook a meal for eight people every Sunday throughout 2010? With steaming plates of pasta she would attempt to triumph over Multiple Sclerosis one week at a time.

She began by sending out an email invitation to all of her friends and soon added to the guest list scores of new people anxious to join in the fun. Each week the first six who accepted the invitation would join them for an evening of laughter, good food and plenty of great wine. They never orchestrated the mix of people, allowing fate to create interesting “pairings” of dinner guests. Over the course of fifty-two weeks, they heard stories that made them weak with laughter and others that brought tears to their eyes.

And they ate…mountains of gnocchi, meatballs and her guest’s favorite: homemade ricotta with fresh-baked bread. The story of her journey through the pain and confusion of Multiple Sclerosis, coupled with the healing balm of her lovingly prepared meals is told with humor, grace and heartwrenching honesty.

This book will have you running to the kitchen for your own remedy to life’s challenges. As the famous chef, Michael Chiarello, Ronda’s cheerleader and inspiration for her meals suggests, “Take this book and learn from the gifts she is sharing. Commit one or fifty-two days with those you love and start your legacy now.”

…………………………….

Don’t you love the idea of a Gathering Table? It just caught my imagination….I want to try it…perhaps not on such a large scale time-wise but at least periodically.

In Simple Abundance I had just read about the idea of a comfort drawer-setting aside one special drawer to keep any items that brings comfort to you for the “rainy days”  in life when they come…and they will come, as well we all know. The author, Sarah Breathnach, put some items like these in it: chocolates (a necessity) old love/friendship letters/notes, satin eye mask, scrapbook, tin of fancy biscuits,  unusual teas, different aroma/creams…..

To add to the room’s effect…. she suggested changing sheets and putting on the softest ones/highest count -kept for guests) white candles on a tray (your own northern lights) soothing music and favorite pj’s.

In both cases (whether a gathering table or comfort drawer) we first must understand how important it is to pamper ourselves some days and keep friends on our short time-line to comfort and support us while we do the same for them.

Discovered this little book while “surfing” for similar themes….looks good….especially ideas for comforting others during turbulent times. (Thanks for all your continued prayers for Kaitlyn’s family. Honey, as usual, you are so special!)

So until tomorrow….Be good to yourself. You deserve it.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

John is home….safe and sound from Phoenix, AZ….they all came to bring Eva Cate to play with Boo Boo for a couple of days….working in the garden and making fairy homes.

* The Ya’s sent flowers to Jackson for her first day in her new home/apartment. She said all the furniture was there but the hard task is emptying all the boxes before she can begin arranging furniture. Still she is happy to be in and we are all so happy for her. It’s been a long time coming!

And speaking of ‘a long time coming’ Brooke said she had to wait a long time to be a grandmother but it is so worth it….these days she is keeping Caleb a few days a week since Veronica returned to work and loving it. Isn’t he precious?

Susan, Bekah, and Ady are all home from Disney World. Susan said they were happily exhausted. The Magic Kingdom is magically wonderful but it is definitely not for the weak of heart or legs….you have to be strong to make it through. This little Cinderella (Ady) looks like she is more than ready for the clock to strike twelve.

Dear Reader:

Over the past few days I have spent with Mandy and the children helping get them get from A to B, meals, shopping, dressing, baths, and finally bedtime… all the memories of those long ago days have come rolling back.

I do remember being tired all the time….a deep desire to run away and sleep when my children were going in three different directions. The baby books tell us that the ‘little bump in the road’ with newborns and adult sleeplessness, will end when he/she sleeps through the night. Wrong!

Life just gets more hectic….and watching Mandy fixing suppers, then lunches to take to school, getting baths, reading stories, and finally getting Eva Cate and Jakie into bed….only to collapse in front of the television while folding clothes reminded me why I still think the period of life I am in right now is the very best time of all.

We did have fun…we took the kids out late each afternoon to feed the geese, went shopping for new shoes for Eva Cate and pants for Jakie, played games and laughed a lot. Hopefully I was of some help in the overall picture….but it is a quite different life than the slower paced one I now lead.

Eva Cate is returning today to stay with Boo ’til Tuesday since her school is out on spring break with the College of Charleston. This upcoming week she is becoming a “floater“….a family member who floats from one family unit to the next. Of course she will love it all! And what a beautiful week to be off!

The lesson I remember learning, that Mandy is now learning, is how we all have to ‘let go’ of the falsely advertised image of the perfectly clean home, as well as, clean children, dogs, and instead just let life unfold the way it should. Life is not neat or safe….Jakie trips as a new walker, Eva Cate stumbles as a fast runner and no amount of vigilance will stop it.

Rain puddles and mud are magnets to children and life is too short not to land in them.

Kate Wolfe-Jenson has learned this life lesson of letting go, (Of her pride as a self-sufficient human being and structured artist), as her MS continues to rob her of her hands and legs. Here is an excerpt from her latest post:

“Give In, Give Over, Dissolve into Love”

It is safe to let go. Really.

We think it’s not. The road seems treacherous. Shadows loom large and we are not sure of our footing.

Perhaps, we think, we should tread very carefully. We should draw straight lines and make huge efforts to follow them exactly. There may be safety if we keep everything controlled and contained.

Our efforts to tiptoe around our fear puts it in charge as surely as if we let it steer the way. Fear may be my bugaboo, not yours. Maybe for you it’s anger or sadness or uncertainty. We all have them – those feelings we avoid, those situations we declare are just Too Much

By holding on so tightly and scrabbling for control, we block ourselves from each other and from what may be. We don’t realize we are indulging in a peculiar kind of aggression. So sure are we that This Will Not Do, we become sharp edged and merciless. We push life away.

Surrendering to our experience, whatever it is, we open ourselves to new possibilities. We soften to life and to connection with each other. We dissolve into love.

………………………

The theme of letting go also brings Kaitlyn and her family to mind, because losing a beloved family member, is the hardest “letting go” in life. It is happening to all of them right now…the death of a beloved daughter, mother, and sister. Amanda….Kaitlyn’s older sister.

All prayers for the Swicegood family during this difficult period are so appreciated. I pray for the family the peace of understanding that only God can provide. Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers.

In lieu of flowers Kaitlyn has opened a Go Fund Me for Amanda’s two daughters to use for college (or however) later in life. Am adding the link in case someone would like to contribute.

https://www.gofundme.com/AmandaLafone  

Here are some photos of life as it is being lived and loved by my grandchildren…..got to see them all.

Saturday morning, while Eva Cate was at dance lessons with Mandy….I took Jakie over to play with his cousins Rutledge and Lachlan. Walsh took them in the wagon with Poogie pulling the crew….they had a ball. The only scare Jakie got was from Uncle Walsh with his 80’s disco wig on.

So until tomorrow….SOME OF US THINK HOLDING ON MAKES US STRONG; BUT SOMETIMES IT IS LETTING GO. ― Hermann Hesse

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I don’t know what is going on….but something marvelous appears each time I leave home. There must be some deep meaning in this, but whatever, it is so fun! Look what was sitting on my porch yesterday afternoon. Somebody needs to “fess” up….loving it.!

Susan, Bekah, and Ady are in Disney World and broke the trip by staying at the B&B Wednesday night. Unfortunately I missed them since I was at Mandy’s but this beautiful rose plant had been left for me….Wow! Hope y’all are having a ball! Early Happy Birthday Ady….thought you could use some birthday for your stay at Disney World!