St. Patrick’s Day, celebration of the patron Saint and the wonderful island of Ireland.  First thing I remember about St. Patrick’s day is literally ‘the wearing of the green.’  If you didn’t wear green on St. Patrick’s day, you got pinched.  Ouch!  And some folks really do enjoy pinching you.  Ha.  Anyway, I have been trying to gather my 'blog' thoughts and it’s been a while coming.

So today I took a drive up to Carmi to attend a meeting at the Baptist Children’s Home.  I took 57 North, then Rt 14 over to McCleansboro, going through western Franklin County and all the way across Hamilton County, into White County.  This is very beautiful country, typical rural Southern Illinois.  Miles and miles of pretty straight two-lane hard road.  Miles of beautiful farmland and beautiful dark green fields already bursting with promise of plentiful harvest.  You know you’re in the country when eight out of every ten vehicles (if you even see ten in a twenty mile stretch) are big working pick-up trucks.  Oh, and the other two are giant SUV’s.  You’re more likely to see a huge tractor or a corn planter or a fertilizer tanker.  Another way you know you’re in the country is there are practically no sign boards.  For about ten miles I saw one small sign.  It was for deer processing, not surprising at all.

Not far over the Hamiliton/White County Line, I noticed a sign for a church.  I made a mental note to stop by on the way back from Carmi and check it out.

Funny, I should find a St. Patrick’s church, on March 16, no less, and yearning for something special for my blog, I could not resist the camera bug.  So on the way back I got the sign in sight and made the turn.

Interesting sign. 

It’s a beautiful old building, 1839.  Of course, there’s a cemetery in front.  I was intrigued with the color of the front doors.  Green.  

So there you go, Green and St. Patrick.  Wow, what a great find for St. Patrick's Day, 2012!  Wasn’t even hoping for a green iris for St. Patricks  Day addition to the Iris Garden, but guess what ?

Bearded Iris 'Kiwi Slices'

So, “May the road rise to meet you.  May the wind be always at your back.   May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again . . . May God hold you in the palm of His Hand.”  An old Irish Blessing.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY  to all my Irish family and friends and the rest of you, too!



GRANDFATHERS

Never had one myself. 

     Only had one Grandmother. 

          Thought she was awful special. 

                 She was all I needed as far as I knew. 

There’s an old saying, you don’t know what you have until you lose it.  Well, the other side of that saying might be that you don’t know what you missed if you didn’t have it.

But a Grandfather died, recently, and it kind of opened my eyes.  He was an old guy, they called him “Red”.  I didn’t really know him, just who he was.  Actually, he was my cousin’s father-in-law.  Thus, her kids, John and Julie, were his grandchildren, and he was their ‘Granpa’.  Their dad, my cousin’s hubby,  was “Red’s” only child.  He’s a really nice guy and I always thought Gib, the son, was a good father.   Never thought much about why or how he came to be such a good father.  Oh, well!

When I got to the funeral, it was kind of a different service.  The minister read two letters, one from “Red’s” wife and another  from the grandson, John.  The first letter gave me a portrait of a loving man, who was entirely successful and made his part of the couple/marriage thing really special for his wife.  The second letter showed me pieces of what I had missed in my life without a grandfather. 

             Now, I had known men who were grandfathers.  And plenty of my cousins had their own grandfathers on the other side.  And I saw the movie, “Heidi,” more than once and had an idea what a grandfather was supposed to be. 

                But when the minister finished reading John’s letter, describing not only the material things, the good times, the lessons learned, the shared experiences, a real loving grandfather relationship, I felt a loss.  I felt the loss for John and Julie, and I felt a new and different understanding of that loss in my life as well. 

                I thanked God for “Red”.  For his influence and lifetime touch on John and Julie.  And for his influence, even in death, on me, too.  And I thanked God again for Gramma, cause she did all she could and was all she could be for me, because she was all I had for a “Grandparent”.

So here’s to the Iris Garden for Grandparents:

Beneath My Wings. 

Pic is from the  Iris garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden

in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.