A Kindred Spirit

You don't have to know a person for a long time to know they are a kindred spirit. A person can be of a different generation, eighty-four years old to be exact, and be able to touch your heart in a way that brightens your countenance and gives you new perspective and appreciation. This was so with Azel. The first time I met her, she was standing on a bucket on the other side of our backyard wood fence watching the children play. I could only see her face from the nose up, but I knew she was smiling. The way her her hands hands grabbed to the top of the fence, her eyes smiling, would remind you of a child looking over a fence to watch a circus rehearsal. However, her hands were not young, but old. Her hair is grey. Her love for life, obvious. There was no criticism in her watchful eye as the boys wrestled and hollered about acting the part of superheroes in their capes, but, rather, she cherished their youth. She found pleasure in the small girl who was always there with those spirited boys, but who would sweetly talk to herself, the butterflies, and the bumble bees. I, the child's mother, in my rush to accomplish the daily tasks might have let such a moment slip by if this woman did not bring notice of such pure childhood to my awareness simply by being aware of it herself.

Sometime later, Azel invited me in her home. Oh, how she basks in the beauty of her home. She filled it with treasures, so many with a story to be told, and each with a memory for her to hold, such as paintings, old books, dolls, painted tea cups, stain-glassed lamp shades, a decorated hair brush and matching hand mirror, chests, and delicate porcelain figurines. In a world were the aim has turned to mindless mass production of questionable quality, it is no wonder she finds beauty in the skilled workmanship involved to create her various pieces of furniture including a carpeted chair with decorated wood framing, an elegant chest with glass cupboard doors which came from someones garage and took a great deal of cleaning, a two-tones walnut table with an oval glass base, a tall bed with gold nobs, and, my favorite, a writing desk that looks as if to be from the home of Jane Fairfax. So many of her things she found at garage sales. Her soft green walls calm her, she says. She finds value in the talents and creative minds of the creators and can appreciate the purpose of the art in its various manifestations. She enjoys the beauties of the earth and dotes on her flowers. Her lush lawn is weedless and she gave me tomatoes from her garden. She gave my daughter a seashell to which my daughter commented repeatedly, "It's soooo pretty and soft. Is it mine?" She gave my son a football so he could have something too.

To surround yourself with beauty, not as the world sees it, but as you see it. That is what I want to do. I want to love the moment. I want to bask in my children's youth. I want to appreciate the glory of God as I enjoy the splendor of this world in its fullness, the majesty of the earth along with the peace it can give. I want to fill my life with beautiful things, words the inspire and uplift, and, mostly, people I love. That is what I learned from Azel.