How a friend tended my spirit as she taught me about gardening.
I say I’m a self-taught gardener, but that is incorrect. I first fell in love with gardening when visiting a neighbor’s garden. My friend Glennis gave me my first gardening lessons.
Seemingly a strong independent person, the truth is I was an injured bird, not raised but grown up in poverty. I hid a deep reservoir of pain from abandonment and various tortures. Having no interest in pity for myself, I kept busy and found joy in my child and the things I could learn and do.
But injured birds are fragile.
It was over 50 years ago. I hadn’t…
Acts of kindness I observed on my walk to the grocery store
Every act of kindness is a golden thread in the weave of peace is a chapter heading in a book I began years ago: Perhaps 30 years ago. I’m fond of it. The chapter title and the book's conception. Many of the stories in my unpublished collection are huge — stories about people making enormous sacrifices.
But kindness can’t be measured. Does it have weight? Shape? No, but I imaging it’s all a matter of opinion.
For me, simple acts of kindness are significant.
After I finished tending my garden this afternoon, I decided to walk to the grocery store…
A story about how, as a child, I learned to give thanks through prayer.
I lived with an aunt until I was almost four. I’m thankful for that time with her. One of the many gifts she gave me during those years was that she taught me to pray. She made a note about it in a baby book she kept.
Little Katie said her bedtime prayers all by herself tonight.
Tears river down my face today as I write this, just as they did two years ago when I first read the words. You know the prayer — the prayer many children were thought. It begins:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I…
THE DAILY CUPPA June 1–15, 2021
Gathering of stories served at The Daily Cuppa
We’re getting so big we need a weekly gathering of stories but I can't stop reading long enough to pull that together!
We continue to be gifted an amazing variety of stories. It’s such a joy to read each submission. From how to, inspiration, life events, pets, children, oh my the list goes on.
Thank you, each and every writer at the cuppa. Your stories and engagement are making this one of the most pleasant places to sit a spell and read.
What’s Old?
I hate how stories disappear. So what the hey, we’ll resurrect some of our older stories.
How plants make junk into beautiful designs in my simple garden.
Finding items thrown into the trash or abandoned has always attracted me. It may be because of growing up in poverty. Or is it because I always felt like trash, having never belonged and being the poorest of the poor wherever I lived?
I don’t know. But to me, it’s turned out to be a gift.
Wherever I’ve been, whatever income or social status I gained throughout my life, I’ve found awe and wonder in the simple things around me.
My Old Falling Down Fence
There’s a fence between my home and a neighbor’s. It was attractive in 2002 when I purchased my home. Not…
