By Kay Etheredge

The hummingbirds are darting, all ten of them, their tiny bodies fighting for dominance and sugar to fuel them on their upcoming southward journey.  Our Creator tells them, and they listen.   I’ve seen two yellow butterflies today, and saw the most perfect and intricate spider’s web at a local garden trail where I was walking with friends.  A friend took a photo and sent it to me.  I have marveled at it all morning. 

And there is one tiny duckling, downy and spunky, attempting several times to follow his mother from the lake onto the rocks.  He fell over and over, finally making it, but just barely.  We had given food and water to his mother weeks earlier, as she sat with brave hope on her nest.  We counted ten eggs under her body as she stood, we imagined, to show us, and only this tiny duckling survived.  Nature can be cruel.

Yesterday at a cemetery where we buried a friend, I described this world in my mind, silently as heads were bowed, as chaotic.  I envied our friends whose names are already etched on marble stones beside the one we buried, their birth dates waiting impatiently to be joined by their bodies and that one final date.   And their entire family’s names will all be in a line and it seems so orderly and tidy, but we know that there were deep hurts that linger, just below the surface, and these are good people.  The older I get I realize we die a thousand tiny deaths before we actually die.   Afterwards, we drove 7 miles to a restaurant and ordered catfish that we consumed while listening to our friends, hair white and knees creaking, tell their stories.  There was laughter in spite of where we’d been and there was sadness in the stories and the restaurant emptied out and we were still there. 

And Saturday there is another funeral, and the hummingbirds will hopefully still be darting.  I don’t know about the spiders’ web or my very breath, but the Creator tells me to answer that phone, to listen, to set aside bigger things, while there is still time.  I want to write poems and read stories to people I don’t know.  I want to hug my grandchildren and breathe in the smell of their hair, and to rub my dogs’ velvet ears. I want to pick out my own house.  I want to put all things in order, and leave this world better than I found it. I want to see every man who comes into Brother Bryan Mission free from addiction and understanding how much they are loved by the One who imagined them.   And knees creak when I rise and days pass like a vapor, and there is so much left to do.  Tell me, teach me, Creator God, and I will listen.  Maximize my moments, for Your own glory.  There is a journey I prepare for as well. 

   Another friend died on the last day of August and I, who live for fall, am sad that she didn’t live until September.  It seems to me that  it would have been better to live until fall. God reminds me constantly that He doesn’t need my help to carry out His own beautiful plan.  As I drove to the store to buy chicken to make a meal for this family I’ve known since childhood, I passed a house in an affluent area that was having an estate sale.  I didn’t stop but came home and looked online.  A couple of things interested me but not enough to go.  One picture stopped me as I scrolled.  In old, beautifully ornate penmanship on an envelope was written, “Minnie’s Handmade Lace”.  Minnie’s lace had been carefully preserved in a box and was stunning, but whoever buys it, if anyone does, will have no knowledge or care for Minnie or who she was.  We can save something forever, treasuring it, tucked away and cherished, for strangers.  I feel sad for the person who kept Minnie’s lace stored away, and isn’t there much that I need to release, to hold with open palm? 

I cried at Brother Bryan Mission last week as I sat in front of my husband and two other men.  Men are usually very uncomfortable with crying women, but I also think that men in recovery have learned to empathize with the wounds that others bear.   There was something I had held tightly within me for over two months, something that caused me deep pain.   I had certainly prayed about it and talked about it daily with Jim, but this was work and my personal problems needed to stay neatly packed away.  One of the men sat with me in the empty cafeteria as I ate a meal that he had prepared.  I tried to eat the delicious steak but it kept getting hung  on the sadness that constricted my throat and I cried  even more. After the initial spilling of tears, I realized I no longer felt embarrassed.    He sat with me and we talked.  He told me  quietly stories about his past.  He choked on ice once as he watched a movie with his dad, and his dad punished him for getting choked.  And before I knew it, I realized I was crying as much for him as for myself, and  as I uttered “I’m sorry that happened to you” the lump in my throat grew larger.   I was moved as I realized that we can divide each other’s sorrows and sometimes it is selfish to not let others see our pain.  He told me something honest he said to his grandmother once and she asked, “Why are you telling me this?”  He answered, “Because it’s true”.  I chewed more steak and I think I actually recoiled on behalf of his grandmother because I thought about how words he really needed to say were received like a blow.  I thought about how truth can sometimes hurt deeply.  I also thought about how raw and honest this conversation in an empty mission cafeteria was and how just maybe this was a divine appointment that was healing each of us, and how He plans out each seemingly tiny moment and holds us close through our hurts and tears.   

The hummingbirds left this week and that is always sad.  The antics of the hummingbirds help me to tolerate the heat of summer.  I wish hummingbirds could stay until winter, and now the feeders that my husband filled just in case there were stragglers, sit barely swaying just outside our window.  Soon we will take them down, storing them until next summer

There is much hate and chaos in this world.  Nine eggs didn’t make it, but one did, and its tiny inhabitant brings great joy and laughter to a group of women.  A spider spins and weaves all night and we marvel as the sun rises predictably and perfectly, emblazoning the spider’s secret artistry.  The seasons change and God not only gives us respite from the heat, but paints our surroundings in the most glorious of colors to delight us in Himself and remind us that He is in control.  Whether we are in busy restaurants or quiet and empty cafeterias, we can listen to the stories of others and share our own, and see that the one common, beautiful thread that runs throughout is redemption, and we can bow wounded hearts and creaking knees as we offer Him our thanksgiving.