Just before you

Julia ♦ October 5, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

Some of the prettiest flowers I saw in England were not in gardens, but on the streets.
Burford, Oxfordshire, June 2017

“The best things in life are nearest:  Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.  Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.”― Robert Louis Stevenson

One year ago today, Jeff said his final goodbyes to us, and we to him, and he closed his eyes and drifted into the sleep that would end in his death less than 30 hours later. As I think of him today, this quote seems a fitting remembrance of how he lived his life. He understood the wisdom that Stevenson expresses in these words. Like all of us, he sometimes grew weary of the demands that never seemed to stop coming, but I never doubted his devotion to the “daily duties and daily bread that are the sweetest things in life.”

What daily blessings will we give and take today? What sweetness might go unnoticed because we have grown accustomed to it? May we begin and end our waking hours with the understanding that this time is a gift, however ordinary the wrappings may be.

This post was first published seven years ago. Again I grieve, with ever-growing awareness of the treasure of everyday life.

I returned to Burford this summer while I was at Oxford, during the weeks of hope when it seemed Carla was going to survive after all. I took joy, as always, at the flowers that seem to be embedded into every city block anywhere in England during the summertime. Below is just one picture I snapped during that July Saturday in Burford.

The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.