You are asleep. Deep, deep asleep – and then the world caves in. The cat has leapt from the top window onto your stomach. He is saturated. He is hungry. He taps you into full wakefulness with a sodden paw “Could you open a can?”
An older sister is a friend and defender – a listener, conspirator, a counsellor and a sharer of delights. And sorrows too.
The work of a garden bears visible fruits-in a world where most of our labours seem suspiciously meaningless.
Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you’re just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric.
You never realize how much your mother loves you till you explore the attic – and find every letter you ever sent her, every finger painting, clay pot, bead necklace, Easter chicken, cardboard Santa Claus, paperlace Mother’s Day card and school report since day one.
Thank you for being interested. Doesn’t sound much but it meant just about everything.
Love is to understand, at last, the suffering of another.
Horses lend us the wings we lack.
A horse can lend its rider the speed and strength he or she lacks – but the rider who is wise remembers it is no more then a loan.
Be wary of the horse with a sense of humor.
If there is a heaven, it’s certain our animals are to be there. Their lives become so interwoven with our own, it would take more than an archangel to detangle them.
The child who ran weeping to you with a cut finger is now brought home, smiling gamely, with a broken collarbone and incredible contusions- ‘it wasn’t Jezebels fault, Dad.’
Brooks too wide for our leaping, hedges far to high. Loads too heavy for our moving, burdens too cumbersome for us to bear. Distances far beyond our journeying. The horse gave us mastery.
Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply.
We expect too much at Christmas. It’s got to be magical. It’s got to go right. Feasting. Fun. The perfect present. All that anticipation. Take it easy. Love’s the thing. The rest is tinsel.
A cat likes to hear you calling him. He sits in a bush a yard from your shoes – and listens.
A sister is the cure for swollen heads and ego trips. One may a star, a Chief Executive-famous and rich and beautiful. But one’s sister has the family photo album. And a long, long memory. And a tendency to wink at one on Top Occasions.
Dads don’t need to be tall and broad-shouldered and clever. Love makes them so.
Sisters never quite forgive each other for what happened when they were five.
Bears being sent through the mail should never be squashed up to make them fit. It gives them indigestion.
A cat is always on the wrong side of any door.