Showing posts with label Lucy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lucy. Show all posts

Thursday, July 17, 2025

Dear Lucy, It Is Summer

...and now it is ten months since our hearts were suddenly broken,
never to be the same again!
Dear Lucy, how we miss you!

The honeysuckle vine you gave is gilt with clusters, pink...


The breeze chases a winsome wave that rolls through wheat fields, gold...


The lily and the hollyhock lure honey bees to drink...


And everywhere we look earth gleams with beauty to behold


Summer has much on offer to rekindle awe and praise
The garden like a coffer brimming with the fruit of dreams


The countryside, a work of art entitled Summer Days...



Dear Lucy

The honeysuckle vine you gave is gilt with clusters, pink
The breeze chases a winsome wave that rolls through wheat fields, gold
The lily and the hollyhock lure honey bees to drink
And everywhere we look earth gleams with beauty to behold

Summer has much on offer to rekindle awe and praise
The garden like a coffer brimming with the fruit of dreams
The countryside, a work of art entitled Summer Days
(where joy and sorrow rush the heart in conflicting extremes)  

Sometimes, when missing you ignites fresh, sudden pangs of grief
I count the ways I loved you, sister dear, and love you more 
Then, from a world of yesterdays, descends divine relief
Love's symphony of echoes plays a tender repertoire 

The memories I have of you are like a garden path
Traced and retraced, soft woven through with threads I cannot touch
They gently bind the isles Thought trods to Laughter's Aftermath
Of Summers where we oohed and a-ahed, and talked and walked and such

....while watching our children grow too fast; they always do
While weathering the ebb and flow of tides that stole our youth
While planting flow'rs in trouble's dirt like our mother did too
While learning from parental hurt, lessons of timeless truth 

What I would give to hear you sigh or exclaim with delight  
Over something that caught your eye while your heart skipped a beat
A field full of wild flowers, purple, yellow, red and white (we were out on a sister's day)
Or twilight's tranquil bowers, or a yummy fresh-baked treat 

No, summer has not changed its ways, it still burgeons with bliss
And never ceases to amaze on both good days and bad 
The sky is blue; the lake is too, but, oh, in spite of this 
Somehow sweet summer without you just isn't quite as glad 

Janet Martin 

The memories I have of you are like a garden path
Traced and retraced, soft woven through with threads I cannot touch...


This year I planted a little flower garden in my vegetable garden...


A place to work, and let the therapy of flowers comfort me.
A place to sit to pray, read and remember Lucy, as well as my parents,
my other three sisters and their spouses,
my five brothers and their spouses
And of course her husband and children
We, as a family, all share in this deep grief of missing Lucy..



I hope in August when more flowers bloom, 
and you also would love a quiet moment of reflection and remembering Lucy,
you know you are welcome to drop by my garden too 💛🙏 











Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Dear Lucy, Then Heaven...


you were suddenly called Home...
May all of us who miss you so
honour your memory by loving well
those still within our reach!💓🙏

Lucy loved flowers...esp. peonies!
In her eulogy one of her children remembered her calling to them
to come and stuff their face in a peony 
'because you have not lived till you've stuffed your face in a peony!!'

So Lucy, this peony-season each face-stuffing is in tender memory of you...💝💔












 Won't you too, take time to stuff your face in a peony?!
and when you do, thank God for your loved ones, 
pray for those mourning the loss of a loved one
and consider, if God should call you as suddenly as He called Lucy
nine months ago, if you are prepared to meet Him
because you have received the gift of salvation 
when you believed in Him! 

This is one of the first verses our parents taught us to memorize
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

***

When Death, the Scythe that ceases Time, gathers a loved one beyond reach
Then Heaven, once hope's distance clime becomes longing's uttermost roar
Where, though we stagger 'neath the weight of lessons love must ever teach
We turn our eyes toward a Gate that gleams far fairer than before

When Death delivers Farewell's rift and stuns the grasp of mortal ken
Then Heaven, once salvation's gift becomes sorrow's song, over-joyed
And though our tears may flow, we know God's keeps His promises. Amen
He cheers us with strains of 'hello' wafting across yon, gaping void

When Death reminds we who remain how small-swift-sacred is life's lease 
When earthly loss is Heaven's gain then Heaven suddenly draws near
Compelling us with humbler hearts to look upon the Prince of Peace
Until faith turned to sight imparts the face of God and loved ones dear 

When Death, the Scythe that ceases time fells dust-to-dust's brief vestibule 
Then Heaven, once hope's distant clime draws grief to gaze beyond the grave
On He who gathers back the soul, who made Heaven's hope/Home possible 
Conquering death and hell for all who call on Him, Mighty To Save 

~Janet Martin





Monday, June 9, 2025

While My Body Grins and Groans (I want to take nothing for granted)

Recently I have heard more than one person say they don't want to take anything for granted!
I echo this sentiment in today's reflection of birthday celebration weekend.

Ps.90:12
So teach us to number our days, 
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Thank-you God, for

 Fridge-foragers...


Father and son discussions (on the merits of certain hockey players etc.) 😅

Impromptu Sat. afternoon surprise coffee break... thank-you Emily and fam!
(Missed a pic of the delicious raspberry lemon scones, still oven-warm!)


Precious birthday-celebration dinner-guests...
 (my parents)

and Victoria...


 Dear Husband, May I never take you for granted
(too often, sadly, I do!)

esp. your hat-tossing habits 😐😏 which haven't changed
 since mentioned HERE on last year's anniversary poem...



Special sister time...



even more special in a peony garden !
Whistling Gardens near Brantford, ON
(below, a few of fifty+ pics of peonies)






Sister smelling the 'roses' while her hubby
scouts out ice-cream shops on homeward route 😊😂💖


I want to take nothing for granted in life's little Learn and Teach
Where soon each gifted day is planted in a garden out of reach
I want to wonder at God's grandeur; be mesmerized by His grace,
To be fine-tuned to tender splendour till nothing seems common place
Collecting through life's gains and losses, a much gladder gratitude   
Braving love's charge of shouldered crosses by trusting Mercy Renewed 
Contented in the Steadfast Knowing, come what may God never fails
His love is constantly bestowing winds to test and steer faith's sails

I want to take nothing for granted, where blooms briefly beam and nod 
But to be more humbly enchanted by the handiwork of God 
He, who attends both joy and sorrow maintains nature's threaded loom 
I want to live today without tomorrow's borrowed dread and doom 
I want to manifest His Presence in the peace of Letting Go
Where true happiness is, in essence, this; trusting His yes and no
The Author of salvation's plan is faithful, trustworthy and true 

I want to take nothing for granted in life's leap from Him to Him 
Soon morning's newborn ray is slanted westward; soon Today grows dim
While epitaphs that time composes sets gasps in permanent ink
Like a storm of thorns and roses scattered, blood-red and blush-pink 
As breath-by-breath's brimming succession spills life's sacred, fleeting Toll
Wreathed by dust-to-dust's grim profession of death's claim of all but Soul 
So, before my hulled husk is planted in a garden of grave-stones
I want to take nothing for granted while my body grins and groans 

I do not want to take for granted the sheer wonder of it all
Or become dumbly disenchanted just because the petals fall
Or love's smile-and-tear weathered tether snaps; the ties that bind undone
By the Hand that brought us together; nothing new under the sun
Rousing us, Self-heady-prone dreamers to face raw reality
Time's transient flash of  vapour/paper streamers unhinges eternity 
So, while life's precious plot is planted with memories that love makes 
I do not want to take for granted that which God both gives... and takes 

© Janet Martin

I do not want to take for granted the sheer wonder of it all
Or become dumbly disenchanted just because the petals fall...


Thank-you God, for another birthday...


Thank-you for sisters/family and friends
 who showered me with beautiful birthday wishes
and flowers...

I came home yesterday, a bit peony-high
to find a new variety of peony (Dark Eyes) a deep burgundy-red
 at my door, from my friend's garden!
thank-you Kim 💖


I was also sweetly blessed by a begonia-planter 
in memory of the begonias Lucy gave all of us sisters last year,
from my sister Marlene 💗💔


Some flowers in the hue of the flowers Lucy gave us sisters last year
(because the peachy-coloured begonias were sold out)
From my sister Carolyn...we 'watered' them with a few mingled, tender tears;
Love's universal language


I'll admit it was an extra-teary birthday.
I miss Lucy with profound tenderness in times like these
so I took out the book she gave me in place of a card last year...