One potato, 2 potato, 3 potato, four

This is my friend Tony Brown from Scotland, peering forth from a potful of potatoes that he showed me how to plant back in April (or was it May?). Potatoes grow upside down! You put a few little tatties into a pot and cover them with soil. Voila! Green shoots spring up. Cover 'em with more dirt. Watch like a hawk and keep watered. Repeat. And then..... and then.... and then.... you can harvest them.

Just below is the midway point in potted tattie land. I grew up in Venice Beach, California and learned nothing about gardening. What grew locally were succulents, daisies, a few others whose names I don't recall. Sand and salt spray were not conducive to the kind of lush gardens and gardeners you'll find abounding in Great Britain. So Tony teaching me how to plant tatties was a treat.

The top photo just arrived in my email box. I love it. I'm sad I left before I could taste them. They wish I was there to taste them, also!

When I arrived in Scotland in early April, I had hoped for six months and frankly more. I didn't know if I would live or die, to be brutally honest. I was fairly weak, with no stamina to speak of. My treasured 2-hour walks with Ruthie would find me in bed for the same amount of time the next day. And if you've followed my path in these blogs, you'll know that it became time for me to return here to the States. I had 3-1/2 healing months with my precious friends over There.

I began like the early pots and am feeling more like the top photo, save for Tony peering through the lush growth. I am stronger and healthier than I have been in well over a year. Not yet here in north Georgia two months, I am allowing a life to come into me and through me.... noticing I am loathe to splutter forth A List of all that I'm doing since that was one of the character defects that surely didn't help my poor immune system get into the mess it got into - the gogoGO and dodoDO revving that ran me into the ground. (I am not saying that I 'gave myself leukemia'; I am acknowledging that stress can cause all manner of unwellness).

Today I am experiencing the riches of having a life. I'm even tempting my old modus operandi of too much.... remembering to breathe slowly and STOP. Whoa, girl, what's this frenzy? Stop. Breathe. Look at the riches you have!

The potatoes grew and were harvested. They had a beginning, a middle and an end. I too will have the same. One of my aha's today is that an end which threatened to be very close at hand doesn't feel quite so lurking.

Why?

Prayer? Herbs? Scooting right up to this "I am the end of your life!" bugaboo called Death and saying, "Okay. So you're close. Hi." The sheer unadulterated Grace of God?

Yes.

It ain't dumb luck. I don't believe in that. I also don't have all the answers, or believe that life is black-and-white. "If I'm Good, I'll live, and if I'm bad, then it's curtains." For some reason, I am not only still alive but more vibrant than I have been at least since this nasty thing called AML came a-knockin' (me over) just about a year ago. It was last October. And what a ride it has been....

I prefer the one I'm having now. There are no medical guarantees to be had, not with this thing that I have. But my Assurance doesn't reside there.

In the meantime, I'm doing well. Very well.

The tatties grew. They were savored oven baked with butter. I hope to plant some more next summer in my friends' garden at Fisherman's Bothies.

Until then.... I will do my best to embrace each day as God's Gift to me, that I may share more with others as well!