GUARDIAN ANGEL?

 I am not ashamed…no, I am not too proud to admit sometimes I don’t know the difference between an angel…and a cloud.

This morning when I looked up at the sky…oh what a wonder I did see.  

All the clouds were moving with the wind…but one was hovering over me.

This cloud didn’t act like all the other clouds…she stayed there floating free.

I’m pretty sure this cloud had wings…she looked like an angel to me.

She flew over me my entire walk…soaring like a bird.

She never left my sight…she never said a word.

And I began to wonder if we all have a guardian angel who in our life is intertwined…is it possible this morning…in the clouds…I got a glimpse of mine?

And though the evidence was circumstantial it led me to conclude this indeed was my guardian angel…and I was filled with gratitude.

As I say I’m not ashamed…I am not too proud…for even though I think she was my guardian angel…she could have also been a cloud.

As I was wrestling with this dilemma a lone white feather fell out of the sky…and when I picked it up…I smiled…knowing my guardian angel was nearby.

DREAM ALONE

 

They were good friends when they were young…they’d lie together under the stars…he’d search for constellations…she loved Jupiter and Mars.

The two of them were so young all they had to do it seemed…was to laugh and play and sit together under the stars…and dream.

And oh the dreams they dreamed…of things they’d do and the places they would go…never realizing at such an innocent age…there was much they did not know.

They didn’t know on those evenings looking up at the stars from her backyard that life would not always be that easy…or would hit her quite so hard.

As she grew up her life became one of sadness, of sorrow, of uncertainty and doubt.

He saw her sinking into a quicksand of depression…but he could not pull her out.

She left him a note the day she killed herself with instructions to read it…under either Jupiter or Mars…It read: I’m sorry to be leaving you but there’s just too much darkness between the stars.

He rereads her note often…on nights sitting under a starlit sky

and even after all these years…he still can’t help but wonder why…

Why he couldn’t help her find a way through her sadness…over the terror of her starkness…a way to help her see the stars…instead of all the darkness.

As he looks up at the stars today he tells her, “I’m still missing you…and I am sad for all the dreams we made that never will come true.”

“And I have to tell you something when we were young we couldn’t possibly have known…

It’s not as much fun dreaming…when you have to dream alone.”

COMMUTATIVE PROPERTY

 I was taught the commutative property of addition back when I still counted on my fingers and my thumbs…which stated: no matter how we group our addends…it doesn’t change the sum.

When I grew up I left the commutative property behind…

I didn’t think it had much worth…until I heard someone say the other day…

One People

One Love

One Earth.

We may not all look alike and we may pray under different steeples 

But when all is said and done we are still

One Earth

One Love

One People.

I hope the next time we pray to whatever God we pray to…

as we look up and search the sky above…

we pray that we remember we are:

One Earth

One People

One Love

And as we look backward and forward at a world that because of us is misbegotten…

let us pray we can remember the math we have long ago forgotten.

Math we were taught when we still counted on our fingers and our thumbs…

that no matter how we group our addends…

it does not change the sum..

5 STAGES OF CHRISTMAS

 It’s funny as I’ve gotten older…as my book of life has added a few more pages I have come to realize that Christmas is made up of five distinctive stages.

Today I can sit back and smile…when I take the time to pause…

knowing, for me, those five stages have revolved around Santa Claus.

During the first stage I was so young it was easy to believe how Santa Claus could drive a sleigh and bring me present on Christmas Eve.

In the second stage I’d grown up a little…and thinking I was wiser than before I figured I was too old to believe in Santa anymore.

In the third stage I was older still…and was happy to hear my wife’s and children’s applause when I put on that big red suit…and I played Santa Claus.

In the fourth stage I was older yet…my white hair and beard made children pause…

They’d smile, point…they’d wave and say, “look Mommy I think that’s Santa Claus”.

I’m now in the final stage of Christmas where I smile every time I see a Christmas decoration or hear a Christmas song because I realize not only do I still believe in Santa Claus…but I believed in him all along.

What makes this such a wonderful stage…is realizing Christmas is more than Santa Claus or songs or the different gifts we are receiving…

that Christmas is…

that Christmas was…

that Christmas all always be…

In the magic of believing.

A LITTLE BUCKET FILLED WITH ART

 We received a gift of art yesterday…Art…perhaps on this point the two of us might quibble…you see the art was from a three-year-old…it was a bucket filled with scribbles.

Perhaps it was not art at all…yes…when we see it in a different light…perhaps these were just little notes he took the time to write.

If it is a bucket filled with art or little notes is something we will long discuss…but what makes this bucket special…is he made it just for us.

What’s in that little bucket?…we can spend some time debating it but there is no argument what makes it special…is the time he took creating it.

For the beauty of any handmade gift (we realize as we grow older) lies both in the intention of the artist…as well as the eye of the beholder.

HOLIDAY SADNESS

 

For many of us the holidays are happy times…it’s when we smile, we laugh…we grin but for many others the holidays is when sorrow comes flooding in.

When the waters of sadness rise around them…as they are reminded of a death, they wonder how long they’ll be underwater…how long they’ll have to hold their breath.

And though they know the flood will on day end and their life will resume unimpeded…they wonder how they’ll repair the damage once the waters have receded.

How will they rebuild each time they’re reminded of their pain…if they’re lucky they start to notice little things…like the sky after a rain.

Like how the sunlight paints the morning sky as it welcomes in the day.

Like the laughter of their family…and friends they’ve met along the way.

There is no time limit on sadness…and it may take a while…but eventually they begin to remember all the things that made them smile.

And the more they remind themselves of the pleasures in their life…the less they think about the pain…

a skill they will find useful…when the waters rise again.

SMALL GIFTS

 They loved receiving gifts from their Grandma and Grandpa but as birthdays and holidays flew by they noticed they never gave each other gifts…one day…they asked them why?

Grandma and Grandpa smiled as their memories began to drift.

We decided every day we get to spend together, they said…that would be our gift.

“And so we made a covenant that we would find a way to show each other we loved each other a little each and every day.

To give each other at least one gift of love before each day is through.

Not necessarily with the things we buy…but by the little things we say and do.

A smile, a kiss, holding hands, a touch…although they may seem small, 

we have found throughout the years are the greatest gifts of all.

We discovered just by the little things we do or something simple we might say we can make every day that we’re together into a holiday.

Their grandparents are both gone now but their grandchildren still like to boast…that the little gifts of love they gave them…are the ones they cherish most.