Host unlimited photos at slide.com for FREE!
This week's blessing is my 9-year-old daughter's baby blanket that my father's mother made for her when I was her age--32 years ago.

When we arrived at the camp where she had spent the week, we gathered up her luggage to stow it in the car while we waited for camp to close. I grabbed a pillowcase that I had not recalled packing and peeked inside to see the soft, faded old knitted bit of comfort with its holes in all the corners.

I glimpsed her when we had arrived; I was struck by her older, more independent, very confident posture and the ease with which she interacted with the other girls. She was in her element. She was older. And I was pleased and proud and glad she had made the most of her adventure in the wilds of New Hampshire.

When I saw the blanket, I thought of the words of an old friend: "Wise people take everything with them; they leave nothing behind." Of course, Alice was talking about bringing every lesson learned from every experience into the present and applying that learning to the present--of drawing on every intellectual, emotional, and psychological resource. She was talking about living fully in the moment over and over again.

Yet, in a literal, concrete way, Adella did exactly right. She brought with her a gift of love from a great-grandmother who knew she would succumb to cancer before she would ever see her great-grandchildren and who believed she would not live to see her granddaughters arrive at adulthood. That little blanket is a legacy of love that has made its way beautifully into the present. It is a legacy that helps my daughter grow up while it--because it--comforts the child.

Beautiful thing.

Blog Your Blessings