Pondering on the porch in the swing. It’s late afternoon. The sky is full of white and grey wispy clouds. Just a slight purplish and pink tint where the sun is setting.

The flock of cardinals are enjoying the feeders and bird baths. A small gathering of doves are bobbing their heads under one feeder, eating the seeds that drop from the cardinals feeding. A fat little wren is calling his friends from the feeders on the other side of the yard. Nobody has come to supper with him so he’s eating alone. He’s so loud when he pokes his little chest out and sings.

Neighborhood dogs just trotted by going home and Penelope barked ferociously. As usual the three of them looked straight ahead and walked on down the street. Earlier when Penelope and I were taking a walk she greeted them happily. Put her in the playpen and she has no friends.

Agatha Christie said one of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood. I had a happy childhood, carefree and content. I think my children had a carefree, happy childhood. They ran around in the woods, mainly in their underwear when they were little, racing with chickens and ducks and cats and dogs. I remember once my mother lecturing me about Rosie running around in her underwear. She was almost five then so we appeased Mama by putting a cotton petticoat on her. It was hot, we had no air conditioning. Everyone had a box fan blowing by their bed at night.

We lived in Chief’s daddy’s art studio down a dirt road in the woods behind Chief’s mother and sister’s houses. I was thinking about the scuppernong vine near the bannisters here hoping I can make jelly this year and I remembered the first time I made homemade jelly as a young bride. Chief and I had picked wild plums. It was 106 degrees in the kitchen, I kept a thermometer on the wall there, and I was pregnant, happy and content stirring the boiling jelly with sweat running down my face.

We had a wood stove for heat in the winter. I would dry the baby diapers on a rack near the stove. Some of the happiest days of my life were spent there. Chief and I always yearned for those years. We lived there 13 years until we moved into his mother’s house. All three of our children began their lives in that little house and we filled it with love and happiness.

I built the children a tree house and a sandbox. Chief came home from a work trip to Russell’s Habersham Mills and asked me who built the tree house. The kids were excited to tell him Mama built it. Built them a big sand pile and asked the old man living next door to Mrs. Saunders to take me to buy sand for the sandbox. Chief’s sister was sitting on her porch when I went by in the truck with him and she kidded me about it for years. He was quite a character.

Sometimes being content just involves accepting things the way they are and not wishing your life away for something unobtainable. Just to wake up with breath for another day is a gift. Accepting life and the world as it is isn’t easy but if we truly love, we accept people as they are.

Thank God we have memories to sustain us and make us laugh and help us remember days with loved ones who have left our lives. And being strong in our faith, we know we’ll see them again.

Life is a beautiful journey and we choose whether to walk with grace or drag our feet tripping up on things we can’t accept or change. We need to express gratitude for every little blessing.