Sweet Home Alabama

pics. courtesy of flicker

I love this picture and just had to add it when I read the inscription on the tag! It is so near to how I am feeling today. I had to find some sort of replacement for the pictures I couldn't take with my camera being on the blink.

I made a little trip to my hometown in Alabama to visit with my extended family today. We had a great time visiting, eating, talking and best of all laughing. I am so blessed to have cousins and aunts and uncles to share in my life. I love to be with them and recall our childhood memories.

Childhood memories just flooded my mind as Richard and I pulled into the driveway of my grandparents home place (my grandparents are no longer with us, neither is the home they shared with each other.) It has been replaced by a more efficient home for our family members to come and enjoy. The most important parts of my history to this piece of land is still there. Isn't it amazing the ties we have to locations, people, things that remind us of our past. Most of my childhood friends have moved on, and I didn't recognize the neighborhood the way I remember it as a child. The corner store is still there, although Mr. and Mrs. Payne are not. Several of the houses have been torn down, and from the way it looked to me, the neighborhood is headed into more forgotten era. The part that has not change are the memories. Memories of sitting with my sweet grandmother on the front porch of that long ago home. I wish I had a penny for all the days spent talking, daydreaming or just listening to her recall her childhood, or of her telling me the story of how she met my grandfather, or how she raised her 8 children. Those are the memories that will never be erased.

Something very special happened as we pulled up the drive. I was talking to a dear friend from McMinnville. This sweet friend did not realize the impact she has made in my life, by her christian example, the great mother and wife she is, and most of all her commitment to her grandmother's memory, or how her grandmother's inspiration on her life today, and how it has blessed my life. I felt so blessed to be having a conversation with her as we pulled up to the place that held so many of my childhood memories and my heart was just overflowing. I hope she is reading this and realizes how she touches so many lives by her example.

Yes today was a Grand day. We spent it with precious family members reminiscing about our past, planning our futures, and just thankful to be together.

My wish for my children is to always take the time to make those wonderful memories with their dear loved ones. The kind of memories that stay with you a lifetime. I pray that one day in the far away future, they will pull into our driveway, or the driveway 3/10 of a mile up the road, and those same loving memories come flooding back to them. I pray that God will place friends in their lives who's example is in direct comparison with their own.

God Bless each of you, and please take time to make some memories today with your loved ones!