Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, wouldn’t have missed lovin’ you girl.
You’ve made my whole life worthwhile with your smile… I wouldn’t trade one memory”
Ronnie Milsap
I watched through the laundry room windows as she took our little rescue dog—Tulip—out for her first morning exploration of the yard. Tulip is now three and part Jack Russell and Rat Terrier mix, sweet, energetic and attached at the hip to my bride.
The breeze tossed Lynda’s hair as it blew by, and from the way she pulled her robe tight around her, then wrapped her arms around her chest, I knew what the temperature must be like, and what her words would be when she returned.
A cold front had wandered through our part of North Florida over the weekend. And with it brought what appeared to be a beautiful day.
“Wow, it’s cold out there.”
She hurried to open the door, with Tulip bursting past her to return to a somewhat warmer space.
Fall has arrived and with one week to go before we set our clocks back an hour, you can already feel the cool weather settling in, determined to stay around for a while. The World Series between the Kansas City Royals, the American League champions, and the San Francisco Giants, the champions of the National League, is shaping up to be one to remember. College football is in the homestretch heading toward conference championships, bowl games, and a four-team playoff designed to crown a national champion.
Pumpkin patches are springing up everywhere, and little children and precious granddaughters are carving their imaginations into the faces of hand-picked pumpkins. Leaves are changing colors and falling from trees everywhere, perfect for kicking on long walks in the woods or wandering with someone you love in the back-yard. Gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas are beginning to bounce around in the minds of families.
All signaling the approach of the last days of 2014.
All signaling the end of another year to be catalogued in the archives of our memories which, for some of us, at least, have reached the pages signaling the fall of our lives.
Maybe that’s why the memories were so strong, when I heard that song again the other night, of that time over thirty-years ago when Lynda and I saw Ronnie Milsap in concert in Gainesville.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,
Wouldn’t have missed lovin’ you girl…”
I touched her hand again the other night, as I know I did on that evening so long ago, when we first heard him sing those words. We were in the springtime of our lives then, not giving a time like today—which would have seemed so far away—a second thought.
Yet fall has now blown into our part of the world—cool and invigorating, stirring memories of times gone by, which I wouldn’t have missed for all the world. Maybe you can identify with some of what I’m talking about. Remember those times gone by in your life?
Sure you do. Fond memories, many, and maybe some that are sad and difficult as they come to mind. But all which are now a part of the foundation of who you are and the relationships now and which have been in your life.
Embrace them. They are yours forever. They are a part of who you are. They have helped to form the best of you, and shaped for the better the things which needed to be changed in you, in the journey of your life.
But as the fall breezes blow through your lives—or whatever season you find yourself in—and they continue to turn the days of your calendar, remember, too, there is more to the journey which still lies before you.
There are times which remain ahead of you in which memories are waiting to be made, hands are waiting to be touched, walks to be taken, children and grandchildren are to be hugged, friends to be lifted, and lives to be helped and changed for the better—by and for you and me—and for those we love.
Don’t miss all the moments ahead.
Embrace those once-in-a-lifetime moments still there for us to make memories.
In the fall, or no matter what the season, of your life—don’t miss them.
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2014. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
