Today was a beautiful summer day. Dark blue sky painted with white fluffy cotton ball clouds, some clouds purple with rain that never fell from the sky. The bird feeders were filled with cardinals and chickadees enjoying their seeds and sips from the bird baths. A few doves lit on the ground bobbing around on their short stubby legs looking for seeds the cardinals had dropped from the feeders. I love to watch the doves, so beautiful in their muted colors of brown and grayish tan. I watched a mourning dove drink from the bird bath and noticed for the first time they have a blue ring around their eyes. When the sun kissed her feathers I could see some light watercolored pink and purple feathers on her breast and neck. Her legs and feet were such a bright fuchsia, I saw her as wearing high heels, perched tightly on the edge of the bird bath. All dressed up in her mourning dove glory and trying to be a lady and not whistle her wings when she flew off. To her embarrassment, her wings did whistle when she flew off the bird bath.

Mourning doves as considered spiritual messengers and symbolize love and peace. Their name comes from their sad and lonely cooing sound. I enjoy hearing them coo. It’s peaceful to me and calming. I don’t find it sad. Lots of people think they sound like owls sometimes. But if you have hoot owls in your yard like I do, you know the dove’s cooing doesn’t sound like an owl’s hoot. A flock of mourning doves is called a piteousness. I love learning these new words!

Read a beautiful book today, The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride by Joe Siple. A simple easy to read novel about strength and bravery and the power of love and kindness in our lives. Murray McBride has lived to be 100 years old and has lost all the people he loves, his wife of 80 years and his two sons. He’s living a lonely life with no relationship with his grandson. In the heart ward at the hospital he meets a ten year old boy with a terminal heart condition, who needs a heart transplant. The little boy, Jason, is waiting to die as is Murray. When the father picks up the little boy to take him home, Murray finds a crumpled up piece of paper that has fallen from the little boy’s pocket, a list of five wishes he wants to complete before he dies. Murray makes it his mission to fulfill these wishes of the little boy and in return brings love and happiness and a reason for living back into his own life. Murray finds that with love he has so much to live for even at his 100 years. I won’t spoil the book by telling what happens but the powerful story shows how love from people we come in contact during our lives can change the course of our life’s journey.

Love is so powerful in its healing power. Helping others give us connections with people and a purpose to our lives. Pay attention to the people around you and help them with acts of kindness. One of my work friends lost her husband several months before Chief died. She told me, “I think God sent me to help you through Tom’s death ‘cause I’ve experienced it, too.” I was so appreciative of that sentiment and it gave me comfort to know there was someone else who had experienced the pain of losing a spouse. She was always there to talk to and she understood because she had experienced it, too.

Life often places us in the path of someone who needs us and our love and understanding. Experiencing love and compassion benefits us and the recipient.

“It is more important to do small things with great love than to do great things with little love,” — Mother Teresa