A Very Special Day

Today I'm excited to share my latest journal page and wish my little sister a very happy birthday!

I have three sisters and all of our names begin with J.  Anyone who knows us even a little knows that we are j's 1,2,3 and 4.  I am j3 and Jill, whose birthday is today is j4.

Jill came into my life when I was just two years old so I don't remember this world without her.  The picture I used for today's journal page was taken as I was leaving for my first day of kindergarten.  I wonder if Jill wanted to go with me that day.  We would have had a blast in the kitchen center!

My little sister and I did everything together when we were young.  We laughed, we fought, and we put on countless "shows" for our big sisters and our parents.  Every summer morning we made mud pies for our playhouse bakery and we spent entire afternoons pretending we were being chased by "the robbers" who were trying to harm our twin baby girls (our matching Baby Tender Loves).  Somehow we always made a narrow escape in time for dinner.  It was really quite magical.

Life was simple and beautiful.  We had no idea how complicated things would get as we grew up. We had no idea I'd get married and move thousands of miles away.  We had no idea how many months of her life Jill would spend in hospitals because of a respiratory condition.  We had no idea how hard so much of it would be but looking back I see how rich it has been as well.  The hardships have helped us treasure the good times and we've learned to look for beauty in unexpected places.

The most beautiful people I've known are those who have known trials, 

have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

 -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Recently Jill and I amused ourselves one night in her hospital room by drawing left-handed portraits of each other.  As you can see, we are both most definitely right-handed.

I have to say, it is amazing that she captured such a great likeness of me since she had an oxygen sensor on one of her fingers at the time.  We laughed hysterically.  We laughed because the drawings were so silly, then we laughed even more because we needed so much to feel joy and to be okay with life as it was just at that moment.  Laughter is such a powerful weapon. 

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. 

The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. 

Nelson Mandela 

Jill,  I want you to know it is an honor to walk through life with such a brave and daring girl.  I am amazed at the depth of your strength and courage and the way you come through every trial with your humor and your generosity in tact.  You will never know how much it inspires me when you continue to look for and celebrate the beauty that is in this world.  Thank you for being my cheerleader and for always being able to make me smile.  I am proud to be your sister and oh, I do love you so.  -j3

Secret Gardens

After spending a few days visiting family last week I arrived home yesterday just in time to put together my favorite bouquet of the season. Spring at our place begins with the blooms of narcissus and grape hyacynth bulbs.  Happily, for just a few days their blooming season overlaps that of our azaleas and I gather the blossoms into small bouquets of riotous, glorious color..

Most of the bulbs I grow were harvested from flower beds planted by my grandmother over fifty years ago.  I found them in this old garden, hidden in the woods just a few hundred yards from my back doorstep.  Grandmother lived in a house that used to be nestled in these woods.  The house is gone, but the bulbs and plants she cultivated there have continued to grow and multiply.

Entering this place I feel like Mary in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, stepping softly as if she were afraid of waking someone.  This is a sacred space for me...a place where I dreamed childhood dreams and shared happy times with people I loved.  It is a place that captured my imagination even when I was very young.  I dreamed of living on this property when I grew up, of carving out my own nitch in the woods and planting gardens of my own.

Sometimes I forget that I am actually living my dream.  Sometimes I think I might like to live someone else's dream.  Really, though, this one is best for me.  Here I have room to breathe and stretch and grow, just like the buds Mary unearthed in Burnett's garden.

So this week I am going to spend time cultivating the garden around my own home and in the process I know I will be renewed.  Warm spring days have arrived and I am eager to feel connected to the earth with the sun on my back and the rich, damp soil in my hands.   My spirit yawns and stretches as it wakes to this new season.

I hope this week you will do some maintenance in your own secret garden...that quiet place, whatever it is for you, where seeds of promise and hope were planted long ago.  Pull a few weeds.  Clear a little space.  Give your dreams room to grow.

Aiming Past the Wood

"Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood,

you will have nothing. Aim past the wood,

aim through the wood." - Annie Dillard 

We've made some progress on the tree I mentioned in the last post and the logs are starting to pile up. It's time for my thirteen-year-old to learn the fine art of log splitting. 


The Annie Dillard quote above is true, not just literally, but symbolically, and I hope I can use this opportunity to teach a greater truth to my son.  Sometimes you just have to fix your focus beyond what lay just before you to get where you want to be.


I often think if we could see too far down the road of any endeavor we might never dare move forward.  If known in advance, the challenges and obstacles ahead might well overwhelm us before we even got started.  Often the only way to progress is to set our eyes on the prize...the end result...the finish line.  This is, afterall, hope.  This is, afterall, faith.

A Tribute to the Human Spirit

There are incalculable resources in the human spirit, once it has been set free.

Hubert H. Humphrey

I think my mother can do anything when she sets her mind to it. Staying mobile is an increasing challenge for her these days, but she didn't let that stop her when we got the chance to run down to the beach yesterday. In case you ever wondered, walkers work really well on wet sand. I had a hard time keeping up with her!

I think the best part of our pretty much all-round great day was the moment when the first wave hit our feet.  It was sheer joy to hear my mom giggle with excitement.  We watched my son splash in the water and the birds fly overhead.  We soaked in the sunshine and talked about how beautiful this world is.  It was very good.