Day #8 For the Beauty of the Earth . . .

"For the Beauty of the Earth . . . for the glory of the skies . . . for the love which from our birth over and around us lies . . . for the joy of human love . . . brother, sister, parent, child . . . friends on earth and friends above . . . for all gentle thoughts and mild . . . "

Today, I am full of gratitude for the community in which we live and for the guidance of a benevolent and loving God in leading us to this place.  We are merely a hop, skip and a jump away from Cherokee, NC and the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway which we DEARLY love to explore.  The color change has not been quite as dramatic this fall, but there's only so much gasping and "Oh Wow" a person can do, and there have been plenty of such moments!!!

The quote under the picture is from one of my favorite hymns, "For The Beauty of the Earth"  . . . I've posted snippets from a couple of verses because I am particularly thankful for the beauty of the earth and my earthly home, and for the JOY of human love - brother, sister, parent, child, friends and for gentle thoughts and kind deeds.  

Late this afternoon I will join with a number of friends to pay our last respects and Celebrate a life well-lived, to one of our daughter's college room-mates whose mother's memorial service is at 4:00 today.  We will be there for support for our daughter, for her dear friend, for MY own friends (Whit and her Mother, Mitzi) and for their family and for our feeling of "like family" with Whitney and her husband and son.  Lots of different feelings to navigate, and, as I have confessed here before, my own issues with losing mothers is right there running.  

As all of us know,  some friendships run so deep and are so important to us that they FEEL like family, and, sometimes, are even stronger THAN family.  I have a couple or three of them - YOU have them - we all do unless we live alone on a deserted island.  Whitney has been like a sister to our daughter, and has, on more than one occasion, rushed to our side in times of trouble.  

I will never forget the bond I saw between our daughter and Whitney in December of 2008 when Dorothy was in an accident on the way to work, hydroplaning her car on an icy mountain road, and broke her neck in three places.  Whitney came to the hospital as quickly as she could and brought Dorothy a little Christmas tree for her room and lights for her halo contraption, and she brought her some of her own childhood ornaments.  Sure she was busy  . . .  has a very high-powered job and a husband and all sorts of obligations . . . but she came!  That matters very much.  

I have such a friend in Wendy - when I woke up from a week on a ventilator with doctors and nurses all standing around waiting on my family to get to the hospital to say good-bye when they turned off the machines,  I called Wendy on the phone - first thing,  She was just someone "like family" with whom I wanted to connect!  I often refer to her as my "sister of the heart". 

Last summer when my husband retired, and we moved to our retirement home,  another dear dear friend (from childhood) and her husband dropped all their plans to help us settle in and move books and go to the dump with throwaways, etc.  

I have a cute little acrylic picture (I keep it on my angel collection shelves) that has a cat sitting looking out of a "window".  On the other side of the frame it says, "A friend is someone who comes in when the whole world has gone out."  

All that to say, "Friends matter."  and "Thanks for my friends and for my family and for my "like family" and for my "Church Family" . . . 

"For each perfect gift of Thine, to our race so freely given;
Graces human and divine, flowers on earth and buds of heaven . . .  
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise."