September's Hello From Canada

It is gorgeous today, here in B.C.
The sun shines for the first time in a couple of days.
Reminicient of summers heat and slower pace.
It never seizes to amaze me how quickly summer fades,
on the heels of fall, as it bursts forth in a splendor of colour.
Even if those colours are in all shades of grey, at times.
The reds, yellows and golds of fall are so beautiful here.
With today's backdrop of an endless light blue sky as the sun shines down.

I'm sorry I have no idea of how the rest of the world's seasons change, having not spent significant time anywhere but here. (And a 6 week vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii when I was 15.)
The landscape in B.C. it is truely something to behold during fall.

I feel very blessed as I listen to my harpist, daughter lovingly pluck her harp's strings into a fleeting melody.
As my younger daughter, loves on me with her kindness, doing this and that for me.
As I am busy writing today. The first free time I have had to do so in a while.
My cup runneth over!

These are the memories that stays with a person for a lifetime.
Memories, and a safe place I have tried to create for my children.
Through the tumultuous storms in life, there is always the safe harbour that's home.

As I recall my own childhood. A time in which I did not always feel safe.
I felt it was only me against this big world, with no one on my side.
I was the outsider in my own family growing up.
(A fact gleaned from my oldest sister one time, when I actually had the guts to ask.)
Everyone looked to me as an oddity, 'a freak of nature', because I was the one who survived against the odds. They seemed to walk on eggshells when around me.

At times I believe my safe place died along with my twin brother, Michael.
As a child, I always thought, I would have felt safer and not so alone if he had not died.

As I reflect back now, Michael would have died this month, 43 years ago.
This is my very first realization that Michael passed away in the month of September.
Two months later I would be born and Michael, delivered.

Ah ha! Light bulb moment here, people! No wonder I do my darndest to hold onto summers warmth.
I am usually fighting fall kicking and screaming.
(As I sit on my back patio enjoying the sun's heat in a tank top, shorts, and flip flops.)
My body's memory remembers even if I do not.
I, unknowlingly have fought the end of summer because deep down,
I knew it was when Michael's life ended.

As I recover from this new realization, I see there IS a reason for everything.
I peel back the layers of my life for re-examination on this summer-like day.
I pause in the faster pace of fall's embrace.
I sit here,
with a new understanding,
in the changed pace that weekends afford.
As it lends the opportunity to recall the past.
Which is a rare luxury during one of the busiest times of the year.

Back to school and the many activities we resume now that the summer break is over.
It gives little time for enjoying the scene put forth, or time for repose.
Those activities we must jealously guard in hopes for preservation.
I will guard those fleeting moments as they arise.

The older I get, the quicker the days seem to fly past.
Cherishing and holding onto those moments shared with my girls.
Memorizing all those little things that make life so worthwhile and treasured.
Along with those quiet fleeting moments, treasured in the
sun's warmth and in summers memory.
As we do our best to pace ourselves in falls chill, painted splendor, and busier pace.



Live In Peace And Peace Will Live In You...