We lingered

His presence lingers ever near through His creation...
through His design of delicateness, He lets us know how tender we are to Him.

From the smallest details in the trees, you can see His handiwork. He lingers near us in the beauty that surrounds us and lives forever in us.

We meet once a month. Our neighborhood ladies gather in our various homes on a Friday morning and play catch up while we eat the newest recipe and sip from our china. Today the gathering was slim. There was just four of us. Miss Ellis, around 80 years of age, had fixed biscuits, two breakfast casseroles, tenderloin, sausage, hashbrowns and had just as many sweet items to finish the meal or rather buffet off. After we barely had put a dent in the delicious food, and I filled a stryophom plate full of goodies for my eagerly awaiting little men at home... the other two ladies had places to go... Miss Ellis and I lingered. She is my precious neighbor who has seen many heartaches in her life. Her husband of over 50 years drowned in their pond almost 4 years ago. She barely survived the trauma herself. She became very frail and lost her spunk in life, but today she had stories to tell me and plants to show me. As we strolled around her yard filled with tender plants she had gathered from here, there and everywhere, I could feel her heartbeat with every word she spoke. "Elmer dug this plant up for me from the bottom fields area and set this here and it has just bloomed ever since. I wouldn't take nothing for it. It was the last thing he planted before he died." I loved listening to her and looking at all her various flowers, plants and shrubs... each one had some type of history that you could tell had meaning to her. I gently picked a few stems from her bright and blooming azaleas... pink, purple, white. A vase by my nightstand now holds my souvenirs from my morning lingering. I told her how much I enjoyed her garden tour and how I wish I could stay all day. She said, "Stay and we will swing, nap a little, eat a little and just visit." The offer was oh so tempting, but I knew and she knew that I had to go home to my garden where my tender stories of life were still growing and needing watering, care and even a little pruning at times, but I did so enjoy our lingering.