Memories: Remembering Beverly

With the boys away at school, I have time to think. The thoughts are gushing out all over the place, I need a mop to clean them up! I also think maybe I have a case of ADD; let me explain. I am cleaning and reorganizing and in doing so, I come across items and writings that stir my thoughts. I wonder where the years have gone. For example, I picked up an old note pad and read what I had written on it and it took me back to when the boys were in elementary school. It seems like everything has gone by with lightening speed and I realize I've had no control over time. Time just keeps moving and it never stops. Thinking about time then brought my memory to when I was in the hospital. I remember looking out the window of my room. I had not been outside for weeks. I felt like I was a prisoner and the world was passing me by.

I have all kinds of memories, items, writings, cards & letters tucked away. Many things I treasure and hang on to for what they represent. It is my way of hanging on to peoples' love and care through the years. The Lord sends so many people to help us. It is His way of loving us. But back to cleaning, there are so many things that I have not been able to attend to between dealing with my health issues, homeschooling and stays at the hospital.

I sat down after cleaning so hard I broke into a sweat. I laid on the bed and stared up at a bookcase in our guest room. At the top are two flower pots with fake roses, some peacock feathers and a teddy bear sitting in a wicker chair. Doesn't sound like a decorater's dream does it? Well, I am looking up there knowing I need to take all that stuff down, dust it and the bookcase, but then I start thinking about what those dusty item represent. The teddy bear my mother in-law gave to me before she moved away to Arizona. She cleaned the old bear that used to be my husband's when he was a child and propped him up in the wicker chair. When I look at that bear I remember my mother in-law.

Okay, next comes the two pots of fake roses and the peacock feathers. They remind me of my neighbor Beverly. When I moved into the neighborhood 18 years ago, I never knew what blessings were in store for me. Beverly was one of them. She and her husband kept a very tidy home and beautiful gardens. Bev tended her roses and every spring she would faithfully grow sweetpeas at the side of her house. She and her husband raised bees in the backyard and kept lawn so green that everyone wanted to sit on it. She was friendly and invited me down to meet her sister and brother in-law when they came from Oregon. That is when she gave me the peacock feathers. She loved my boys and they loved her. Not long after that she had a stroke, but being a woman of faith and courage she battled back. She bravely took daily walks always waving hello to us with a smile. I would send my boys to visit her and at Christmas we exchanged cards and goodies. When she finally passed away Mark and I attended her funeral.

Afterward, her children came and started cleaning out the house. My boys always love other peoples junk and they picked up these flower pots with the fake roses. I have kept them all these years to remember Beverly. They are not a decorator's dream, but I am thinking that the love and memories they represent are worth the dust.