A new year!

New year, new beginnings, new stories to weave on the pages of this magical book called “Life”—page after page filled with dreams, and hopes for a better future, reveries and daydreams; stories of good and evil, of love, of memories spread-out in the wings of a thought; a time for celebrations and reminiscences; a time to love and laugh to repeat to weep to pray to plant to harvest to nurture to forgive and forget; a time to remember the good times, to consider and reconsider, and a time to live. 

Oscar Wilde once said that to live is the rarest thing in the world, because most people only exist, and that is all.  Dear Lord I want to live… live in the moments you gift, and in the now you bestow.  I want to really live; live the moments of my daily life deeply, for happiness is not in another place but this place, and not for another hour, but this hour… and you have given me so much, oh Lord… you have always provided, protected, encouraged, guided, and shown me your love in so many unimaginable ways!  And who am I without you?  Who am I oh Lord and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me this far?

A large flock of robins came by on Christmas day and stayed around for a long while.  I first knew they had arrived by the clumps of swift shadows they made across my kitchen windows as they flew from tree to tree under the brilliant sun of December. And I felt happy and giddily like a little girl fully gratified by the small things of life—by the great things I should say, because the small things of life are often so much bigger than the great things...

Some very especially dear people—our youngest son and his fiancée, came from the other side of the country to celebrate with us, in our togetherness, the end of another year.  We walked on the snow, and droved on icy road to the tallest mountains and ski towns, we cooked and ate, we drank lattes and watch movies past midnight, we played silly games and told stories of now and then, we laughed and danced with the Beatles in an old Egyptian theater and at the end of their stay we embraced once more again and again...

As love nurtured and strengthened every fiber of what’s good in us—affection, friendship, tenderness, fondness were the sentiments which soon let us realized that we had fully adopted ‘a new daughter’ into our family with opened arms and hearts.  How very lucky we are!   

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal, and there’s not a single day I don’t think of mom, and miss her terribly, but life takes away and in return bestows new unexpected ways for us to extend that love and let us continue on loving…

A blessed an happy New Year to you my dear friends!