...before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom...
Ecclesiastes 12:5 (NLT)
I don't ever remember either of my grandmothers without white hair. Powdery, silvery, cloud-like and soft. But that's who they were to me in the long ago and faraway of my childhood memories - old and wise, welcoming and sweet.
I have been watching my father's hair go from dark to light as the years pass. I inherited his dark hair and diligently color the gray out every eights weeks. I think when errant white becomes common and full, it will be time to accede to this almond tree in bloom. But not yet.
What a graceful image of aging - before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom.
This spring, my sisters and I were blessed to celebrate my parents' birthdays - 80 and 85, together. Daddy was the only man invited. Four generations. We rented a vacation home on the outskirts of Nashville and spent a weekend of sharing and caring and loving on each other - a weekend of getting to know the toddlers and babies, to reconnect the scattered pieces of living across the country, to get some face to face and skin to skin.
Bloom. I pray that we will always choose to see the graceful image - like the almond tree in blossom. I hope that I will bloom as elegantly as my parents. I pray that these families, my family, your family, will bloom where they're planted, sowing seeds of encouragement, caring, and love in the gardens of their lives and the lives of the people around them.
I hope you bloom.
Linking with 5-Minute Friday
