Beautiful morning, blue sky with clean white clouds, bright warm sunshine. While I was taking Penelope on her first walk, I was happy to see Father Sky’s blue canvas, anticipating a beautiful sun setting pageant.

The clouds thickened on the sky canvas in late afternoon, vanilla layers of gray and blue, but the clouds parted at sunset and let Mother Nature take over the sky canvas with her watercolor brushes and a myriad of rich colors on her palette. She stroked her brushes of watermelon across the horizon and layered peach, blueberry, pink, lilac, and purple strokes on top of her watermelon wash of color. The top of the sunset stage was filled with strokes of blue and purple feathering across the sky line. She created a beautiful backdrop for the sun to set.

The sun darkened the horizon in her formal gown of fiery orange taffeta when she took the stage. She displayed her gown’s train across the tree lines and lit up the horizon in a deep watermelon orange, a flame of color bursting forth as she slipped down to bed and turned off the day’s light. Father Sky tucked the gorgeous cloud covers around the sun, kissed her goodnight and left to hang the moon and wake the stars. I’m so glad I witnessed the sunset, a gift God gives us each night.

My niece sent me a photo of her sunset today and her view was completely different than mine. Her sunset was streaming across the sky in resplendent sun colored hues of orange, yellow, and pink as Mother Nature stroked her watercolors across the purple and turquoise sky canvas of Father Sky. You could see her sweeping brush strokes in an array of rainbow colors where the shades blended together. Always thought we all saw the same view of the sunset but now I realize we don’t. Mother Nature is a talented painter with an exquisite palette of watercolors.

Was searching for inspiration today and kept looking at all the cardinals in my yard and thinking about the true meaning of a cardinal. Cardinals serve as a reminder of someone we loved who has died. Some believe the cardinals carry messages from heaven. I honestly feel Chief fills my yard with cardinals to send me an “I love you” from heaven. Some people search their whole lives for what I found with Chief.

These sentences, guess you would call it a funeral poem, were on the inside page of Chief’s funeral program. I love these beautiful words and read them often. The words are from a poem by Isla Paschal Richardson titled To Those I Love.

“Tho I have to leave you, whom I love, to go along the silent way; grieve not, nor speak of me with tears; but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you. For who knows but I shall be oft times! I’d come, I’d come could I but find my way. And would not tears and griefs be barriers? So, when you hear a word I used to say, or touch a thing I loved, let not your thoughts of me be sad, for I’m loving you just as I always have.”

The quote on the program stops here but there are several sentences left off the poem. Here’s the rest.

“You were so good to me! There are so many things I wanted still to do – so many things to say to you… Remember that I did not fear… It was just leaving you that was so hard to face… We cannot see beyond… But this I know: I loved you so –’twas heaven here with you!”

“As long as we love one another, God will live in us, and his love will be complete in us.” 1 John 4:12