LAKE MCBRIDE AND OTHER MEMORIES



by reginald daniel

Seems like yesterday that Edith and I sat on an inviting bench on a Swiss mountainside and I proposed to her. Being sorta thoughtful and wanting to give Edith some serious time to think it over, I told her she could take 4-5 minutes to think it over if she needed a lengthy time to consider such a vital, life-altering decision. Good thing Edith had her analysis-decision-ometer switched on. Lucky me, she said yes. Over the years we had some good laughs over the ever so considerate 5 minute time limit to decide Deal or No Deal. Good thing we were ahead of Minute To Win It.

Seems like yesterday that we were both overjoyed to see Derek sliding into the world, our arms, and our hearts. Well, I was overjoyed. Edith was relieved and then overjoyed.

Seems like yesterday that we started a 30 year tradition by engaging in a fall leaf walk at Lake McBride. A twenty minute drive took us to a spectacular splash of autumn beauty. It only took that first trip to tell us we wanted to go there every fall, more times if possible. The Lake McBride fall adventure quickly became the most romantic little ritual in our lives.

This Saturday, Sept. 4, I and a few friends will visit a park where we have planted a tree in Edith's memory. Then we will go to the lake, walk along the trail, soak in the beauty, and have a little picnic. We will share each others' love and friendship while remembering a gift that we have "lost" for a short time.

Sept. 4, 2009 seems like yesterday. And it still seems surreal. On the brightest day yet to come, all our yesterdays will seem like, well, yesterday---as we are absorbed into the unutterable eternal ethereal tomorrow.

Thank You, Lord, that I and we had Edith down here for a while.

By the way, the folks who live at Lake McBride can still burn their leaves---and they do, providing a delicious smell. Ironic how the same lovely leaves leave a stupendous splash of color in our eyes and a lingering, redolent fragrance floating interminably through the canyons of our minds.

A Penny's Weight

by reginald daniel

She arrived July 13 around noon. Came all the way from Mexico. Glad she came home. After all, she was born here. Born blind & totally naked, from an egg smaller than a jellybean, she could fly out of her tiny nest in three weeks. By the end of summer, the iridescent little beauty can fly 500 miles straight across the Gulf of Mexico, heart beating 1250/min. and wings flapping to the tune of 70-80 times/sec.

How do you suppose this fine-feathered blip, weighing less than a penny, drums up the energy to fly so far? How does she know where she is going? When she takes off for Mexico, she goes to a place where she has never been. Takes a lot of faith to be an atheist.

Edith and I sat on our deck many Saturday mornings each summer and enjoyed to the hilt these blue-green marvels. We had an unofficial contest to see who could see the first hummer of the season. They would come and dart all around us, as they flashed in and out of the many flowers we placed on our deck to attract them. Hummingbirds are friendly, fearless, and bold. So bold that they will come right up to you and even try to drink from your coffee cup if you don't move.

The first hummingbird sighting of the season competition has ended. But the memories linger. Now the smiles are accompanied by salty sweet tears that momentarily blur the birds.

There have been several blurrings in my heart during the last 9 1/2 months. Eventually many of the blurs become more clear. But not all.

This hummingbird observation strangely reminds me of the biblical story of Eliezer's looking for a bride for Isaac. He asked Rebekah to believe in a man she had never seen and to go to a place where she had never been. Eliezer would guide her---because he knew the way. Apparently God puts something into a hummingbird's heart and mind that leads her to that previously unvisited home.

Edith believed in a Man she had never met. She went to a place where she had never been. God put Someone in her heart that led her to that unvisited forever home. God has a perfect, unflawed GPS. The many gifts that Isaac had sent to Rebekah helped her believe in the man who would take her as his bride. God's gifts to Edith helped her to believe and to make the journey.

The One Who is preparing a place for us has given us many gifts, too. One of those gifts was Edith. His best gift is Himself.

For me, Edith is in a winter home, but for Edith she is in an eternal springtime. An indescribable paradise. Do you suppose there are birds in paradise?

BTW, a hummingbird can flap its wings 200/sec. in a courtship dive. Sorta like the twinkling of an eye.

16 to 16

Four months ago my next door neighbor asked me what had attracted and endeared me to Edith. I jotted down a few thoughts about summarizing a person's life and then I sent my friend a copy of Tribute to Edith, found on this blog site.

Here is what I wrote as part of my answer to my friend Steve:

Hay, Pilgrim.

You asked what endeared me most to Edith. It reminded me of how folks TRY to write some highlights about a lost loved one in an obituary/eulogy. The loved one has worn many hats, touched numerous lives, & they have more hidden characteristics that most people have no clue about. And when they die, we are expected to summarize their life in a paragraph or 2. Quite a challenge, huh? Even more difficult than the obituary is the epitaph that some put on grave stones. The brevity of an epitaph is a challenge, indeed. Epitaphs are sorta disappearing because of costs & because people do not know what to say about their loved one.

Poignant point to ponder: It is what is in your "dash" that really counts. We have a date of birth & a date of death. In between those numbers is our dash. What you do with your dash is what is significant. What have you done, how have you lived in your dash? Hopefully, your dash includes believing on Jesus as your Savior. And, it should include some giving & doing for others. The only stuff you can keep is what you give away. Kinda ironic. Jim Elliot, a young missionary killed by the Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956 said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

God gave us Edith for a time. She gave so much of herself. A generous and cheerful giver, indeed. The kind that God Himself gets excited about.

Edith made her dash count. Why not make your dash count, too?

The peculiar title of this article? Edith was born June 16 and died at mile marker 16.

We all meet our marker and our Maker.

reginald daniel 1944-

It Was All They Had

by reginald daniel

When we lived in east Tennessee, we met some rather sweet kids in our neighborhood. They were unchurched and also seemed a bit lonely. Edith and I did backyard vacation Bible schools for them. And we took them to the dairy queen or the grape vineyard, where they could eat their fill of a wonderful southern grape called muscadines. Our house was the hang out place when we were home.

Edith and I both won the hearts of those kids and they won ours. But they were especially drawn to Edith. One day they all dropped in with a gift for Edith. It was a small, soft, lovely piece of scarlet red cloth. I just imagine that one of the kids had found it in her mother's rag box of leftovers. Although one person had come up with the gift, it was truly from all of them. You should have seen their smiling gapped-tooth faces as they beamingly presented the little piece of throw away cloth to Edith. The kids had come up with the most precious treasure they had or could imagine. It was all they had to express their unabashed love.

To have seen the joy on those kids' faces, you would have thought they had just given Edith a new BMW, or a 3-carat diamond necklace, or a full-length sable mink coat. To have seen the tears and joy in mine and Edith's hearts, you would have realized that the kids' gift was worth more than a car, a necklace, and a coat. Combined. Strange how one of the best gifts ever given to us was a scrap piece of soft, scarlet cloth.

The scarlet cloth has traveled with us from state to state, from house to house over the years. It has been a reminder of abundant, spontaneous love from a batch of unforgettable little kids.

And the love cloth gift is a reminder of another precious gift. The scarlet cloth of forgiveness that Jesus wraps around anyone who asks. His robe of righteousness is not a leftover piece of cloth from the rag box. It is rather a deliberate, extravagant gift of love that covers our tattered, dirty rags.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isa. 1:18

He gave all He had.

Swish, Swish, Swish,
Swish, Swish, Swish

by reginald daniel

Swish Swash Swoof! Say that out loud for a smile and a refreshing sound. The wipers on the bus go that way, as I learned during a delightful reading and sing-a-long with 2 year old Derek about 30 years ago.

A year later, Edith and I had Derek on skis in his little green snow suit. It was the beginning of a family affair that has brought delight for three decades. We three learned how to downhill ski, but the cross country style is a style we enjoyed immensley.

For those of you have never been skiing, it is a tad tuff to describe the freedom and exhiliration that is part of the warp and woof of this activity. What makes cross country skiing so wonderful? The sheer stupendous beauty of the snow, some spectacular scenery, and the sweet serenity of almost silence. And friends who ski with you. Plus, there is the physical exercise, the shaking and scattering of cobwebbs, and the dusting away of winter cabin fever. Hot chocolate or a cup of hot apple cider caps off a satisfying stint of swishing around the trails.

Although I take pleasure in skiing alone at times, skiing has been my favorite activity with family and friends. It has been a highlight for our family. And after Derek grew up and moved away, cross country skiing was still a special time for Edith and me.

Today I skiied at mine and Edith's favorite park. The park is where we are having a memorial tree planted in the springtime. It was my first time to ski since Edith's death. I left some tears along the trail, but brought home some cherished memories.

Oh, the "almost silence"? When you cross country ski, there is always the swishing and crunching of skis and poles on snow. It becomes a sweet, melodic sound, rhythmically rhyming with the beat of your heart and the chirping of chicadees and sparrows along the path.

For me the song is still sweet, but it has sadly and stunningly shifted into swish, swish, swish.

As for Edith, she was swooshed away and stashed in an eternal springtime that defies description.