Today was a beautiful summer day. My friend described this morning’s awakening day perfectly, “sailor blue sky and goose down clouds…movin’ slow like a small town Christmas parade.” The bird feeders’ perches were filled with cardinals and chickadees and purple finches enjoying their seeds and sipping 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 the dove’s feathers I could see some light pink and purple feathers on her breast. She was perched tightly in her bright fuchsia high heels on the edge of the bird bath, all dressed up in her mourning dove glory trying to be a high society lady as she prayed for her wings to not whistle when she flew off.

Mourning doves are 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!

Alan Cohen writes, “Enjoy your life today because yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come.” Today was a good day in so many ways. I enjoyed lunch and laughter with my niece and her daughter and my oldest-sister-law at the Mexican restaurant. John Muir’s quote gives life to my day. “These beautiful days must enrich all my life. They do not exist as mere pictures — maps hung upon the walls of memory to brighten at times when touched by association or will — but they saturate themselves into every part of my body and live always.” I’m so thankful for all my memories, both sunny and stormy, bringing me joy as I recall them.

Even the sad moments in our memories can warm our hearts because they remind us we loved deeply and cared strongly. The loss feelings and sadness prove our love was real. Our challenging times teach us how to be strong and enable us to become empathetic to others. Alfred Adler writes beautifully of empathy, “Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.”

Love is so powerful in its healing power. Helping others give us connections with people and gives 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 close who had experienced the pain of losing a spouse. She was always there to talk 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