Consider the Lilies of the Field

This is the time of year when the orange day lilies line every single backroad in central Pennsylvania. Gray's Cemetery, near Stormstown, PA, is one of the loveliest cemeteries I know. And it has plenty of orange lilies.

My husband and I had nabbed lunch in town and were on our way home. We stopped at the cemetery to eat our snacks by the little white gazebo you have seen so often on these pages.

Of course, after we had eaten, I grabbed my camera and walked around for some photos. It is a gorgeous cemetery and there is so much to see. My favorite part is the older section which has the gnarled old tree wrapped around two grave stones. There is always peace to be found here.

I have some family news to share, and this is as good a place as any to tell it. My brother's wife Cindy, who had been battling brain cancer since late last summer, passed away earlier this week at the age of 54. My husband and I received the news on Independence Day morning, via a phone call from my little sister Julie.

The family reunion scheduled for this coming Sunday has been cancelled. That is the day that Cindy's services will be held. Of course, we will be going. This makes the second sibling's spouse who has passed in the last few months; my sister Marilyn's husband Denny died in late April, just two months shy of his 70th birthday.

Cindy had been receiving excellent and attentive care at a nursing home in Sunbury called The Mansion. It is a gorgeous old place, with white columns on the big, wide front porch, and airy ceilings, full of light.

They took good care of her there and I got to visit her twice: once in March, and once in June. The first time, I took cookies, and my dad did some of the driving. What adventures we had, riding through the rural highways and byways, family, all together.

The last time I saw Cindy, she was much less verbal and present than she had been on the prior visit. I got the feeling of her being trapped in her body, waiting for release. Well, guess what: she's free now. We commend her to her Maker, whom she served well.

She is also now with Joseph, which is a reunion that she looked forward to greatly. Joseph was their older son who fought the bipolar battle. Joe committed suicide in September of 2021, at the age of 25.

Cindy had Joe's suicide note to her tattooed on her arm, and she and my brother told Joe's story to try to help others with their mental health battles. Rest easy, Cindy; your work here is done.

So there is the news, told to you from this beautiful, orange-lily-bedecked cemetery scene, where the sky is full of puffy white Fragonard clouds, above neat rows of gravestones covered in flowers, in this place of peace.

My soundtrack song is James Taylor and Carole King, with You Can Close Your Eyes, recorded live at the Troubadour.

Here is the rest of the Bible verse referenced in the title of this blip:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these. Matthew 6:28-33. KJV.