DAILY POST CHALLENGE

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WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY?  Hope it is a good one.  One of my Daily Dozen Staying Strong exercises is called Honor Past Gifts.  Here is what I say about that:

Exercise six:  Honor past gifts. This exercise asks you to pay special attention to those responsible for all you have or are right now.  We are the continuation of all the generations leading up to ours.  We are the continuation of the caring our immediate, extended  families,, friends, and teacher gave.   Some gave a great deal, others  gave less.  Each gave all they could.  The most powerful way to honor past gifts is to focus on a memory of one person from your past who gave the gift of caring.  That person may not have always been nurturing;  nevertheless, the gift sh/e gave became part of who you are today.

You can honor the gift from a different person each time you do the exercise.  You honor gifts by taking a calming breath, shutting your eyes, and recalling  a time you and the person spent together when you felt cherished, cheered on, or otherwise nurtured.    When you honor such past gifts, you give yourself the gift of  caring all over again.

So I would change this question to ask you to recall your earliest memory of being with a loved one, who loved you.  Mine is of sitting the inside of the fence surrounding our home.  My father was on the outside. He was painting the fence–one slat green, the next one white.  The sun was shining, my mother and two older brothers were elsewhere and I was delighted.  It was like Robert Brownings Poem

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven–
All’s right with the world!

All was right in my world.  The first picture is the house and fence my father was painting.  The second is a picture of my father probably taken at about the same time.  I was three years old, give or take some months.   It is a memory that still fills me with joy and the sense of being cherished and nourishes me every time I think of it.

I am hoping you find as good a memory. Care, share, and stay strong.

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