I opened the camera app on my phone, changed the setting to video and rotated the camera to face me. In my mind, I had rehearsed the message I planned to send. As sometimes happens in life, things didn’t turn out the way I hoped.
My message was to be sent to a loved one in another province who only had days left to live. There was so much I wanted to say. How could I possibly express my feelings in a short video?
I recorded a two-minute message to be sent to my niece who would play it at the hospice bedside. I tried to send it through Messenger but it was too large. Next, I tried to email, with the same results.
It looked like I’d have to start over. A minute and a half was still too large a file to send. So was forty seconds. I was getting frustrated and started to panic. Time was limited and I needed to get this message sent before it was too late.
Once more I went back to my camera. I had already cut out much of what I wanted to say. The short reading was gone. So were the encouraging memories we shared. I was sure the thirty second version would send. Wrong again. In desperation, I cut all extra words and the recording came in at twenty seconds.
This was still too large a file so I cut a few more words and came in at sixteen seconds. My prayer of, “please let this work” was answered when I hit ‘send’ and it went. Relief was mingled with regret at what I wasn’t able to say.
The next day I heard how much my short message had meant. The following day my sister-in-law passed away.
I learned an important lesson through this experience. It doesn’t take a lot of words to say what’s in my heart. All I needed was to say, “I love you and your memory will remain in my heart.” If I had waited to figure out how to send a larger message I may have been too late.
Thank you, Earleen for the final lesson. Rehearsed words are not as important as saying, “I love you” every chance we get.
My husband and I were walking on a path through the woods when we saw some animal scat in front of us. I wondered what kind of animal had preceded us. I hoped it was from a deer and not something more dangerous. To confirm this, I took a picture for identification purposes. This would let me know if this path was a safe place for future walks.
Today is Canada Day. My husband and I will soon be joining thousands of others in our city to watch the Canada Day parade. We have our red shirts and maple leaf insignia to wear and flags to wave. This is our way of showing our patriotism.
I turned the corner onto my street and saw one of our neighbourhood jackrabbits hopping across the road. When it heard my car approaching, the rabbit stopped right where it was – in the middle of the road. It held perfectly still as I slowly drove past.
I was attending a silent retreat. While I was not speaking, things were far from silent. Sitting in the morning sunshine I was serenaded by the songs of various birds. Some I would have noticed before, but there are many I would have missed amid the sounds of human voices.
I was standing in the grass on a highway median, doing my best to keep three little girls occupied while a tire on their parents’ vehicle was being changed. They were starting to get restless when I spotted movement in the tall grass.
Spring takes a long time to arrive in Southern Alberta. When it finally arrives, it makes up for lost time. In the span of a week, the trees were full of leaves and brightly coloured blossoms. The lawn was lush and green and we could practically watch it grow. The other sure sign of spring is the profusion of dandelions.
Way back in time, when I was a child, play times with friends were not normally prearranged. We just headed outside and down the street until we found someone to play with.
Recently I told you about the small coloured flags scattered throughout my neighbourhood. Mine is one of the many yards to have another feature added.
My husband was mowing the lawn at our son’s house when our granddaughters came home from school. Two came out to see him. One of the girls had a friend with her and hesitated before making an introduction. Then she turned to her friend and said, “This is the guy who comes to cut our grass.”