My first umbrella

It was Christmas. There underneath the tree were umbrellas. One pink, which was mine and one violet, which was my sister's. I hated and mean hated pink. Sissy stuff. ha. My sister always took the pink ones and gave me the violet ones..even though violet was her favorite color.

The umbrellas were beautiful. Mary Poppins was on them and we would fly to school and home each day. It was fun.

It brings up an interesting thought...and I have to give Lightfeather some credit for it, too: Maybe we like things that fly because our gaze is cast upward. Hmmm. It is quite a thought. Lightfeather likes bubbles. I must admit they are favorites of mine, too. We had minature bubble holders at our wedding instead of bird seed.

T and A love bubbles, too. It is fun to go outside and blow bubbles. We have all kinds of wands, too. Great big, stop the passing car bubbles can be made from some of them and it brings a huge smile to the face of the car's occupants, too.

Well, my purple umbrella carried me home or to one hundred-million-buhzillion places in my imagination. Places where care and worry didn't exist. Places where it was rainbow colorful and new. Places were wings can take you. Yes, way up and over there. You remember going there too.

Well we look up for bubbles, kites and umbrellas. Our face is turned to Heaven and possibilities. When you are young, a child, a babe, your face is often turned upward and when it is, there is a big smile on your face. A smile that knows life is good and fun.

All too soon, you grow up and you start looking up less and less. Now, THAT, I think, is the key. Once we grow up, we forget to look up. We forget that cares belong up there in the wild-blue-yonder...up there where Heaven is a dream, a fantasy-a place that we don't understand, but come to believe in. So when is it that we forget to look upward? Well the burdens of adulthood drag us down, I guess. And then our sight is turned downward. Below. Toward Hell, if you follow me.

Then God intervenes. He gives us children so that we can remember what it is like to look up. We see them looking upward and smiling. We see their adventures and their fun. And somehow our vision readjusts. We rememeber what it is like to see the world from dreams and hopes. Hope. Yep, that is it.

So fly that kite, blow the bubbly soapy mixture into little prisms that float on the breeze, hold up your arm and fly with your umbrella...look up and do it often. Give your children the same joy that you found in looking up...give them some of the magic...some of the fantasy. Let them build those castles in the air and with a little help, they won't make the same mistake that we do: forgetting where hope lives.