Merry Christmas

Flowers at the Altar

Christmas flowers at the altar in memory of the love ones no longer with us.  Mom and Crystal our love for you continues to grow and you are always with us in our hearts.

All Saints Day

A candle burns for Crystal and one for mom.  May their lights shine for eternity.

Footprints On the Sands of Time: A Life's Journey

 Footprints on the Sands of Time - A Life Journey of Mary Lee Smith Brown

I made a photo journal of my mom's Life Journey.  The link above will connect you to the book on Shutterfly and you can review the entire book.  Click on the book image and then click full screen.  Since it is 106 pages, it will take a few moments to come up.  You can play it as a slide show or individual pages.  Enjoy!

 

The Earth is My Sister

"The earth is my sister.  I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am."  The cycle of the seasons is alive with the promise of rebirth.  Creation is a mystery and so is death.  But there are promises, that we are the children of God.  "In Life as in death, we draw our power from the same source." 
Quote:  Martha W. Hickman, Healing After Loss

My mother loved the cycle of the seasons.  She knew about the death and rebirth of her garden and flowers every year.  She nurtured and watered her flowers daily. She had faith and believed in God's promises of everlasting life for those who believe in him.

The Trees

The Trees


by Phillip Larkin


The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.


Is it that they are born again
And we grow old?  No, they de too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.


Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Mary Lee Smith-Brown with her granddaughter Angela in Cherokee County, Ga.  She loved the Smoky Mountains.  She had Cherokee Indian ancestors, Augusta Cole and Mourning Brown who lived in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.

"Mary Hillhouse Flowers" Greeting Cards

I love photography and my mom loved gardening and growing flowers.  I am doing a project connecting our mother-daughter love through photography.  I have designed a greeting card collection featuring the flowers from my mom's garden "Mary Hillhouse Flowers".  The collection consists of 8 5"x7"photo cards featuring three flowers on the front.  I also designed notecards featuring her day lilies. They are being printed by Shutterfly and I am also printing my own photo cards. Several years ago, I had greeting cards professionally printed as a gift to her featuring her flowers and she was very proud of her cards and she loved sending cards to family and friends.  During her battle with pancreatic cancer, I sent her cards of encouragement with her favorite flowers.

 

A photo of her watering her flowers and garden beds.  She took loving care of her flowers and the yard was full of blooms and birds.

Hymn to the Night

Hymn to the Night

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the trailing garments of the night

Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence by its spell of might,

Stoop o'er me from above

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,

Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,--

From those deep cisterns flows.

O' holy Night from thee I learn to bear

What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care

And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

The best-beloved Night!

In Loving Memory

Mary Lee Smith-Brown

Angels in My Mother's Garden

In my mother's garden were Red Cardinals that enjoyed the fruits of her labor.  My mom said if you see a Red Cardinal then you are seeing an angel.

My Grief is like a River

Grief Is Like a River

by Cynthia G. Kelly

My grief is like a river, 

I have to let it flow,

But I myself determine

just where the banks will go.

Some days the current takes me

 in waves of guilt and pain,

But there are always quiet pools

where I can rest again.

I crash on rocks of anger--

My faith seems faint indeed,

But there are other swimmers

Who know that what I need

Are loving hands to hold me

When the waters are too swift,

And someone kind to listen

When I just seem to drift.

Grief's river is a process

Of relinquishing the past

By swimming in Hope's channels

I'll reach the shore at last.

Neither Height nor Depth will Separate Us

 


 


"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39 NIV

He will wipe away every tear

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Revelation 21:4 (NIV)

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

 

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
by Henry Wadesworth Longfellow


The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.


Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.


The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but evermore
Returns the traveler to the shore,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.


John 5:11  "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."

In Loving Memory
Mary Lee Smith-Brown (1928-2019)
Photo:  Gulf of Mexico, Panama City, Florida

A Psalm of Life

A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.


Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.


Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.


Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.


In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!


Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!


Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;


Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing shall take heart again.


Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fare;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn no labor and to wait.




This poem expresses how a person's "footprint in the sands of time" can impact the lives of others.  Throughout her life, my mom reached out to countless others in need:  cooking meals,  collecting and serving food banks, clothing, visiting nursing homes, teaching children Sunday School, sharing her garden, comforting and praying for family, friends and neighbors.  She has left footprints for us to follow on how to be kind, compassionate and to love and serve others.


In Loving Memory
Mary Lee Smith-Brown
April 16, 1928 Canton, Georgia
July 19, 2019 Columbus, Georgia

My Mom is "Love"

There is one word I can use to describe my mom and it is "Love". She lived her life with love for God, her family, friends and neighbors including the most needy.  She was kind, compassionate and charitable of her time always serving and helping those in need.  1 Corinthians 13:4-8 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It keeps no record of wrongs, Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails."  This is how she lived her life.  Everything she did was with love. 1 John 4:16 says "God is love, whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." 

My mom, sister and me in 1954 in Columbus Georgia.  My dad and mom worked in the cotton mills and we lived in a white cotton mill house.  It was only a 3 room house.  My beautiful mom would come home with cotton all in her hair but she never complained and was grateful to have a job, a roof over our heads and food on the table.   

My Mother's Garden

 

 

In Loving Memory:

Mary Lee (Smith) Brown

April 16, 1928, Canton, Georgia

- July 19, 2019, Columbus, Georgia