Thank you all for your responses...Maggie, JawJaw, Dotsie, Lynn, Chatty, Smile...I bask in your kind words and use them to bolster my own courage in dealing with lifes' harshness.

This is what I sent George and Mary Ann. It really spoke to me and I hope they will find comfort as well.

There is nothing I can give to you which you do not already
have.
But there is much, very much more, that while I cannot give,
you can take...
No Heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in
today -- Take Heaven.
No Peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this
present little instant -- Take Peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet
within our reach is Joy -- Take Joy.
There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but
see, and to see, we have only to look -- I beseech you to look.
Life is so generously given, but we,
judging its gifts by their covering,
cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.
Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living
splendor, woven of love by wisdom with power.
Welcome it, grasp it and you touch the angel's hand that
brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, the Angel's
hand is there.
The gift is there.
And the wonder of an overshadowing Presence -- our joys too
-- be not content with them as joys -- They too conceal more divine gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty --
beneath its covering -- that will find earth but cloaks your Heaven.
Courage then to claim it, that is all --
But the courage you have; and the knowledge that we are
pilgrims together --
wending through unknown country home.

Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c. 1435-1515)

Thistle, I printed it and am saving because I'm sure there is someone I can share this with.

I love reading pieces that were written years ago, but are still relevant to today's times. Don't you?

Thanks for sharing.

<<<...that we are pilgrims together wending our way through unknown country home.>>>

Yes, Dotsie I agree wtih you. This might be what it means to be "aliens in a strange land". I've read these last few lines, including the very last one above, somewhere else but memory eludes me. I do know they tugged at me then and I pondered them for a long while. I especially like the imagery of people, us, together heading toward a common home.

Thistle, great image!