Dogwood

Graceful dogwood

Each of four petals scared with red like the cross of Jesus.

 How can the sky be such a perfect blue?

 Dogwood  flowers like waxen crosses.

 Centered with a green crown

Precious heart shaped petals whiter than snow 

and speaking God's love at Easter.

Who am I?

What people say: 
My young son says I am a terrible driver.
My older son says I am a great cook.
My teenage daughter says I am a know-nothing.
My grown daughter says I am a genius.
My husband says I am a treasure. 
My mama says I am a brave heart.
My dad says I am a good praline maker. 

My grandson calls me the impostor. 
My sister says I am a talented writer. 
My doctor says I am overweight. 
My friend says I am gifted. 
My club friends say I am bossy. 
My granddaughter says I am an artist. 
Mr. Tate says I am a poet.
God says I am his daughter. 
Who am I? 


Answer: 
I am a mom.
I am a wife. 
I am a daughter. 
I am a grandma. 
I am a sister.
I am a friend. 
I am a unique individual.
I am me.

Letter to a Rose Painter

Dear God,

I just want to say how much I admire your artwork. Everwhere I look, from children's faces to the bark of trees, to wild animals like the giraffe to the sea shells washed on ocean shores, everywhere are wonderful beautiful things that you have designed. There are waterfalls crafted by your hand. There are sunsets too pretty to forget. There are flowers that delight with colors and such petals!
The birds, just the ones in my part of the world, are colorful and arresting. Their songs each original, their nests of certain grasses and rootlets. Then there are all the ones in other places that I have never seen. It amazes my heart. How wondrously you have made all things.

You knew how I would relish every bloom and every leaf. How I would love trees and rocks, shells and stones. You thought up the best colors yellows, reds, pinks, greens, purples and blues. The color of straw. The color of cornsilk, of bluebonnets, of pearl, of sky. Like love letters to us.

Thank you, Jesus for this swirl of silken rose, for this pink with tinge of yellow and wisp of white.

Love you,  

              Elece

Dear Carpenter,

Have you ever wondered what happened to your old tool box? Probably, you left it in the detached garage beside the first house you rented forty-five years ago.I wish I could ask if you made the box yourself and if it was always painted sage green.

You might be irked to know that I bought the odd antique at a garage sale for two dollars. The straight rod that formed the handle and fit in the holes at each end was broken and held in place with masking tape. I tried to fix it, but gave up and removed the handle altogether.

The lids were still hinged in place, so I folded them open before I filled the base with broken pottery pieces and covered those with potting soil. I filled it with purple petunias which have bloomed happily where once screw drivers, hammers, a hand drill, chisels, sand paper, and nails mingled.

I know you haven't forgotten this tool box. Surely, you set it aside with a bit of nostalgia when you purchased your first metal one to replace it. Maybe, you thought your grandchildren would like to see it someday. So you set it on the garage shelf where it collected up rolls of fishing line, random extra tools, and a 3-in-1 oil can. A mud dauber built a stucco apartment on the underside of the lid and it was forgotten.

Years later, someone cleaned junk from the garage and took it with a load of salvageables to the sale, where I saw it and invested two bucks in my love of the mysterious. Every antique has a story and a mystery. I can resist neither. So, I thank you for the fun and though you may be miffed at my turning your manly toolbox into a flower planter, you have to admit, it does a beautiful service.

Still Friends?
Elece

Dear Mama,

Mother's Day is coming up and I was thinking about you even more than usual. When spring arrives and the flowers bloom, I recall Dad bringing you a huge bouquet of salmon pink gladiolas he had stopped and chosen from a local gardener. You put them in your tall gray pottery vase and set it in the sunlight in front of the picture window. It was spectacular!

When we lived in Michigan, you planted snapdragons and pansies in the flowerbeds along either side of the driveway. You have always been a flower lover. I know you would be thrilled to see the roses, irises, lilies and azaleas that I have blooming around my house now.

I have an old straw hat hanging on the wall that reminds me of you. I know you love straw hats, gardens, and the country life. You were an Oklahoma girl, growing up after the dust bowl years, the third eldest of a group of eight siblings. You loved farm life, riding horses, swimming in the creek, and walking in the fields. You loved your Uncle Stoney and Aunt Blanche from Tecumseh.

Be sure of the fact that I will be thinking of you next Sunday as we celebrate Mother's Day.

Love you,

Elece

Dear Rachel,

I wanted to write and thank you for the beautiful basket of Bougainvillea that you brought me on Easter Sunday. I hung it on a branch on the sycamore tree beside my birdfeeders and it is gorgeous. Its pale green and pink petals fluttering in the spring wind remind me of ruffles on a little girl's Easter dress.

Didn't it seem to you that spring green burst out of nowhere? It seemed sudden and I have been enjoying the sunny skies and warm breezes. The oak trees have unfurled their leaves like green pennants and catkins shower pollen on the newly mown grass. The pecan trees and the sycamores are just "breaking bud" as Dad would say.

The tulips have nodded in the wind until their petals dropped, and the redbud tree out front has begun to shed pink, the color of frosting on a strawberry cake, in a circle beneath its branches.The purple iris are blooming, and today a first yellow rose bud popped open on the bush outside the picture window. The azaleas are opening and they will soon be a splash as bright red as a cut ripe watermelon beside the white of the house.

The best thing about the flowers you sent me is the fact that you bought them for yourself and then loved them so that you decided to part with them. You were thrilled with the blooms, yet knowing I would love them you gave them to me. I know it was a gift from your heart.

The flowers have given me joy, just like having you for a daughter does.

Love You,

Mama

What the heart gives away is never gone...It is kept in the heart of others.

Robin St. Johns

AHHHHHHH

Dear Jesus,

What a beautiful day Easter has always been to me because of you! Dad used to take us to the early sunrise service and then to a lodge in the woods where they served pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast. We sang and prayed and ate at long rustic tables festooned with bouquets of buttery daffodils as the sun slanted through the windows on us.

I remember sunrise service at our home in Texas at the Jesus House. Mama served up platters of pancakes and filled pitchers with fresh icy cold milk. We had bouquets of daffodils there too. Someone played a guitar and we sang about how we cherish the cross because it was there you died because you loved us so and wanted to bring us the hope of overcoming death.

On the lawn at Grandma June's house in Louisiana, we watched the sun leap into the morning sky and we sang with the brothers and sisters there, "He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today! He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way!"

Oh, do you remember how Jiggs and the men's quartet sang for us on Easter Sunday? They started out slow and low and dreadfully woeful.

"Low in the grave He lay, Jesus, my saviour;

Waiting the coming day, Jesus, my Lord!"

(Then with such pomp and power they sang:)

"UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE,

With a mighty triumph o'r His foes!

He arose the victor from the dark domain,

And He lives forever with His saints to reign!

He arose! He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!"

"Death could not keep its prey, Jesus, my saviour;

He rolled the stone away, Jesus, my Lord!

"UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE,

With a mighty triumph o'r His foes!

He arose the victor from the dark domain;

And He lives forever with His saints to reign!

He arose! He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!"

I can still hear them. Their deep and marvelous voices thundering in the old stone dome of the First Baptist Church in Manistee, Michigan. It was greater than any theater surround sound system on earth! I am sure that of all the praises you have heard, you must remember those.The sound went right through a person's soul and overpowered him. It made me laugh and cry at the same time!

This morning the sun rose bright and warm on my bedroom window and I watched these tulips open to the light. I thought about you and how good you are to us. I thought what a wonderful day it was when my spirit and heart opened to your light and I knew you were alive!

Thank you, Lord, for coming. Thank you for dying and for living again, for making all things beautiful in your time. And thank you for tulips waving like flags to the spring sky and oh, yes, thank you for songs to sing.

Love you, Elece

Dear Friend from the Past,

I wish I knew your name, but I never had the opportunity to meet you.  You lived on a homestead farm along Highway 16. Your house is gone now. (I wonder if it was still there in the 1950's when I was born.) All that is left is an old cistern where you drew water  when you planted daffodils one spring. I imagine you carrying a full bucket of water to pour over the red Oklahoma dirt beside your gate where you had decided to place the bulbs.

Cows and horses now graze in pastures nearby and the wind sweeps across the grasses- uncut where once wagons slowed to see the bright flowers that spelled spring to their hearts. I know you loved those earliest blooms. I know they encouraged you, but I'll bet you never thought that someday after your house and barn had been bulldozed for pasture, those flowers would keep growing and spreading and encouraging.

Many cars and trucks pass by your old home place every day now. Some drivers notice the yellow flowers waving in the spring breezes. I am one of them. I know you were busy. I know you were hard working and had children to care for, chickens and farm animals to feed, eggs to gather, and bread to bake. Yet, you took time to plant.

I love the legacy of daffodils left behind by you mothers before us. I envision the garden gates, the storm cellars, and front steps of houses now gone, of women now gone, of families now gone. I wonder what life was like for you pioneers and I presume that  you were happy people, because you  planted daffodils.

Every spring the daffodils still bloom and it is a glorious sight. I wish you could see them.  I wish you knew that I pull off the road and walk back through the grass to pick  bouquets of the slender green stems and lemony trumpets. They are the symbol of spring to many. To me, they are the perfect  picture of hope. You planted them in hope for future springs you were looking forward to. They bring hope still.

Aren't they a cheerful sight in my kitchen windowsill- like a letter through time from your house to mine?

Thanks, Friend, thanks so much.

Love you, Elece

Dear God,

The world is cold today. The sky is the gray of old modeling clay Mrs. Mason used to grudgingly let us play with during recess. I am weary of winter and wish for bright sunny skies, spring flowers, and green grass. I know it is coming and that it can't be far away. Spring always come when we almost lose hold of hope. Spring with evening rains, tree frog choruses, air that smells like damp dirt, moldy leaves, and old water.

I am anxious for the coming of the little breeze from the south that sings though he has no mouth. That breeze brings warm air and clear skies and makes the tulips, iris, and daffodils pop up like miracles from the ground.

Help me to hold out, God, to wait and be patient  for the spring to come.

Love you,
Elece