Just last week we visited my husband’s fathers grave. He has been dead for twenty years. Wow, how time goes by so quickly. I looked around the cemetery and walked by many headstones covered with flowers, rocks doodles with sharpie pens, a family having a picnic, balloons, flags, stuffed animals…it was a beautiful sight to see so many flowers in one place, but also very humbling to be among so many living that were still trying to hold onto a piece of a loved one lost.

This past week as I passed cemetery after cemetery looking at all the adorned burial places, it made me think of a great thought from Og Mandino’s book, The Greatest Salesman in the World.

The scroll marked 5… LIVE EACH DAY AS IF IT IS YOUR LAST

There was a particular part  of this scroll that made me think of all those who have passed & even more grateful for today. “This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity…I greet this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death. I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day. So too, I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted yesterday’s sunrise who are no longer with the living today.

It made me think of those who are not here any longer, who cannot greet a new day with gratitude, who cannot sit and enjoy a sunset, a child’s smile, a sip of the fresh, spring air. It makes me think of so many tiny things we take for granted each day. I only hope and pray that as I look at the stars tonight, gratitude will fill my heart, that I will sleep knowing that appreciation sang from my soul.

-Peace to you today. Thankful for this beautiful gift of a day.  -H