Spent the day in Alexander City visiting Chief’s sister and picking up some things from our house there. Drove down the highway under a cold overcast sky of cigar and cigarette smoke colored clouds. Occasionally the clouds parted and I could see the blue tint of the sky canvas. Two sluggish vultures, their bellies full of road kill opossum, slowly moved to let my car pass. They are serious scavengers. Turkey vultures can’t call or caw, they can only grunt and hiss which makes them even more scary to me.

These two vultures had the largest feet and slowly walked away from the opossum, didn’t run from my approaching car. Made me think of toddlers walking around in their daddy’s Sunday wingtip shoes, slowly clomping, slapping their shoes down one at a time, trying to make it to the side of the road before their feet slipped out of the wingtips. I looked back at them in my rear view window and I could see them slap, slap, slapping on their flat pink feet back to finish their breakfast.

Now I have buzzard thoughts on my mind the rest of the day searching for something that makes them a beautiful creature. They are wondrous in flight, soaring to heights that make them look small in the heavens. I love to watch them climb the morning wind currents, watching the brownish-black feathers of their wing strokes turn to silver-gray with the sunshine’s kisses. I always think they are cousins to the bobbing head doves with their pink legs and pink feet. Maybe the doves and vultures shop at the same shoe store.

I was flipping through a daily quote book and this quote just struck me on how it was perfect for my day. “Happy days never end, they live on as pleasant memories in the heart,” Unknown. I was walking around my Alexander City home today, trying not to cry as happy and sad memories flooded my mind and my heart. As I walked through each room I was emotional and I wondered did those memories live in the walls of the house as they do in the walls of my heart.

Some one had broken in and emptied drawers and closets and boxes and had thrown them around in terrible disaray as if a tornado had flown through each room. I should have known not to leave things there but I just thought I’d take them home a few at the time and find them a place instead of adding more clutter to my basement here. I’m honestly thankful Chief didn’t have to see the chaotic jumble of debris. Another life lesson learned. And I thought I could hear my mother say, “This too shall pass.”

Life is always transient and everything is temporary, nothing that happens lasts forever. We appreciate life when we accept that change is a part of traveling down life’s path. Enjoy those happy moments for the joy they bring and file those memories into your heart so you can recall them on dark days to bring sunshine back into the day. We can keep walking though life with the assurance that when tough times come they will not last forever. It seems forever when we experience them but God is helping us carries those worries. Sometimes when we reflect back on our struggles we’ll realize the burdens were not as heavy as we made them. God can do wonders with the weight of our worries.

Looking at all the disarray at my Alexander City home, I just stepped over the clutter and thanked God for all the wonderful, happy years our family spent there. We had Rosalyn’s funeral viewing and visitation at our home and as I stood in front of the fireplace where her coffin was placed I could hear the delightful musical whistles of her childhood and the sweet songs she’d sing when she tired of whistling. Walking through the kitchen, I remembered Chief’s excitement when he’d see all the jars of homemade jelly cooling on the red counter top. He’d always count the jars. Shutting the front door, I remembered the wondrous day Thomas and Ashley joined Chief and me on the front porch and told us Ashley was pregnant. Locking the back door, I saw Stew running up with a little green lizard in this hands and a much loved yellow cat draped across his shoulders. Glancing in the library as I left, I remembered all the warm fires in the fireplace and the happy love filled evenings Chief and I spent there. No matter where we rest our head at night, our family and our love for each other will always be our home.

“Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.” — Khalil Gibran