The Granddaughters perform a lovely hymn

Ashleigh Plays and Morgan Sings

The UCW (United Church Women) took the service at church today, and our grand daughters took part in the service. Ashleigh played the piano, and Morgan sang. Their choice of music happens to be one of my favorite hymns.
Their performance during the actual service was beautiful, and I sat with a big lump in my throat!
This video was taped after the service, and unfortunately the hum and buzz of coffee hour presents a non musical background noise. Also, they were not using the sound system for this taping so the sound is not as good as it could be.
Nonetheless I hope you enjoy their rendition of Jesus, You have come to the lakeshore.

A FRIEND PASSES

RICHARD (RICK) F. BEECHAM

July 15, 1947 - May 25, 2010

The poem below was written some time ago as a tribute to friendship.

I have already published it in this blog earlier but want to

publish it here again in memory of Rick.

Missing Notes
Friends are the notes my life song plays
But the keyboard’s no longer complete
Still the music goes on
with an uneven beat
and the melody colours my days

Too busy to listen, we don’t have a clue
That lifes music is made up of parts
When some come up missing
It yanks at our hearts
and the tune becomes shocking and new

faint echos of lost notes are all that I hold
and I know now that each one was dear
and I yearn for the past
draw the memories near
and let the sweet music unfold

now I listen for each note and chord as they sound
I savor the tune as a whole
notes present and missing
are part of my soul
the music of love is profound

.

MAY 10 1972 A Special Day

May 10, 1972 – a special day

May 10, 1972 dawned a lovely bright spring morning. I was up early as I had a meeting to attend at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto and wanted to beat the rush hour traffic if possible.
I checked with my wife before leaving to see if she was ok as her pregnancy was in the late ninth month. I was assured that everything was fine – no labor pains or other indications of an immediate action.
In mid afternoon I received a page. This was the days before pagers or cell phones, so this was an old fashioned page over the hotel’s public address system.
When I took the call I heard the voice of Dr. Kenneth Hobbs, our family physician. He called to tell me that we had a beautiful, healthy daughter. He also told me that he had called a little earlier, had me paged, and when someone came on the line he gave that person the same news. Only thing was, that person was not me, and was very shocked to hear the news as his wife was not pregnant!
Dr. Hobbs died last week. He was highly respected as a man, a doctor, a father and husband, and also as a tireless worker in his retirement years among the poorest people in India.
We were thrilled to finally have a daughter – Alison Michelle – after having 3 sons.
We are still thrilled, and now she and her husband Bill have given us four beautiful grandchildren that we adore. Ashleigh-Ann, Morgan, Michael, and Rachel.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALISON

OF FRIENDS AND GIFTS

FRIENDS & THEIR GIFTS

Some of you may know that I do a little wood carving. I call them WITlings – basically they are 3 dimension cartoon characters – perhaps Carvetoons would be a good description.
In any event, some of the characters have found homes with various people, and surprisingly, some of them have had exciting and exotic adventures.
The first is a caricature of Pierre Elliot Trudeau – or PET as he is affectionately known. This little guy found a home with friends of ours whose names are Larry & Marie. Another couple, Craig and Debbie, are also friends of ours and very good friends with Larry and Marie, and often take rather exotic holidays together.
After one such vacation to the Greek Isles, I received a power point show from them.
Lo and behold, who should star in this show other than PET. He made the rounds with them of all the famous and not so famous sites. He dined with them, dipped his feet in the Adriatic sea, nearly was swallowed by a shark, got his picture taken on a nude beach, and generally frolicked his way around Greece and its islands.
The result is a powerpoint presentation of lovely locations, all with little PET included.
In the two pictures I have included you will see him belted in on the aircraft ready for take off, and also one on the island of Mykonos, watching the sun set.
You can imagine the funny looks they must have got from other tourists and the locals as they set up these shots.
Both of these guys are now big shots – executives – VIP’S. I told them I know that they are very important, but that they should slow down a little and have some fun. (I hope you understand this was intended as a sarcasm – they did nothing but have fun!!). Please note on my "links" the address for Larry's photography site. To make it easy to have a look at his wonderful photographs here it is - http://www.lkilianphotography.com/
Another one is a cowboy named Zeke. He is a little larger than PET and found his home with other friends named Dan and Lisa in the Cape Breton Highlands in the province of Nova Scotia.
I recently received a disc, hand delivered by their daughter Nicole, and containing more than 70 photographs. As I looked at the pictures I recognized that they constituted a tour of that part of Cape Breton.
The pictures themselves are remarkably evocative of that beautiful area and are sensitively shot. Even more remarkable is the fact that in each and every picture, Zeke is included, somewhere, often very slyly. He is in the open window of the second story of a falling down house, or his shadow shows against a wall, or he may be in the foreground.
It took Dan 2 days to shoot these pictures and create this album.
In the 3 pictures below you will see Zeke in a harbour scene with a fishing boat, in an ocean sunset scene, and finally, sound asleep in his little bed after his long days of posing.
What can you say about the kind of friends that would create these very special treasures (other than that they may be a little crazy I mean).
Both gifts are priceless to me!
NOTE: Pictures can be enlarged by one click, then when a larger image appears, click once again!