Memoir Monday: Angels All Around

                                  Welcome friends, to another Memoir Monday!
Click here to read up on  Memoir Monday  and  please consider linking your memoir  at the bottom of this post!  In past weeks, we've had inspirational stories. Just beautiful.
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I've been doing much thankful thinking lately.....pondering the  blessings of God. Blessing us with people. People who are so important, so influential, so kind. Some, part of our lives  for a lifetime, some for a season, some fleetingly. There are places and people who landmark our lives with their gifts, their presence, their love. Some, long gone. Some, we are blessed to have remaining with us, still.

Well, the play in which my son's been involved has introduced us to so many who have become true friends. Who knew when he went on a whim (well  it wasn't truly a whim, because he did memorize his character's lines)  for this audition that he'd not only land the role but become so welcomed into this 'theater family?' And us, as well.

Looking back at life's twists and turns and thinking of those who grace our lives and of how certain scripture verses so relate to this feeling, as I reflect:

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:21    

     There are backyard barbeques on crystal summer days. Charbroil and hickory wafting to seemingly endless summer sky, creating forever an imprint of happiness, bliss.  Of togetherness. Of safety.

      Emerald grass, lemon yellow marigolds and neon pink petunia-trimmed. Lawn chairs, neatly arranged earlier, now haphazardly strewn. Yanked by eager friends joining burgeoning, lively conversations.

            A day, lingeringly, gratefully, spent with friends sans daily rigor. Heightened by comfort, familiarity, ease. Love.

     There are Sunday afternoons slogging through wintry woods to a frozen pond deep within. Ice skates flung over shoulders and bumping with each step. Bright sun, radiant at eye level. Yet hiding behind full beauty of firs and leafless beauty of maple, oak. There is the anticipation, the newness of the adventure. But more so, the reveling in now.

     The walk. The talk. The silence in between. The being- together.  

     And festive casseroles await in best china on hand embroidered linens. Aroma of roast beef, garlic mashed potatoes, buttered asparagus waft throughout the house. We enter and bring frosty January air with us. But only briefly. For candles and dimly lit inviting den, leather Queen Anne chairs straddle cracking fireplace, casting welcome glow on shelf after shelf of inviting tomes.

     There is a high pitched hearty laugh here; the murmur of quiet, deep conversation there; the scrape of a pot, the multitude of sounds made by those comfortable, enjoying life. Appreciating life. Thankful for Life.

Keep open house. Be generous with your lives. By opening up to others you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

Job 8:21

           What makes these cherished memories? The timing. The feeling. The reasons.

We are guests in treasured ones’ lives. They are guests in ours’.

            These loved ones who create these memories, who decorate these memories. Many gone. Most long gone. Judy, Aunt Betty, Beth, Aunt Julie, Mr and Mrs Godowski, Uncle Tom, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jimmy.     And of course, Mom and Dad. 

Captain Vincent Mooney

My Dad

Manila 1941

        

Mom and me
Mom's birthday 1994

Called Home to their Eternal Reward.   At the time, were they cherished? Was I grateful? Cognizant of how truly blessed I was? Am?                     

Aunt Peggy and me on my First Communion
May 12, 1973

                                                                                

                  Mom and Kev~ Baptismal Day~Sept 24, 2000~
             Aunt Peg,   Uncle Tom, Aunt Mary standing
                                 

           Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.

Matthew 5:48

            These angels the Lord sends our way?  Some for a moment, some a season, some a lifetime.

             The ones who make the ordinary extraordinary. The ones who decorate our memories. The ones who teach us what special is.

            The people, the laughter, the Light, the Word. The ordinary. The good and bad. They are with us along the journey for it all.

      And, for this blessing, we thank God.

    
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So, my blogging, friends, it's your turn now!

Please link up your memoir blog post. Please feel free to grab my button (lovingly created by my son!) and include it in your sidebar or your post, itself. 

 You have no idea just how inspirational others will find your writing!

 ~Chris