Those Little Red Shoes

In 2015 we traveled to Wales where Liam and Katie were attending the University of Bangor.  I wrote then, “We are here with our Katie Maria—whose spirit made the French Alps sing for us while visiting her in Grenoble, France, last year—and that same beautiful spirit will make the hills of Wales sing for us now!”

“It seems like only yesterday that I wrote:  “I’m basking in the “joy” of the Joys this morning.  Liam and Katherine Maria Joy of England (via FaceTime) shared that joy with us yesterday.  They are expecting their first child in November.  This anticipated joy of the Joys will be our third great grandchild.”

“Elodie—the joy of the Joys—is now two years old.  We’ve only met via FaceTime.  COVID and MomMom’s illness have prevented our travel across the pond and a face-to-face meeting.  Yesterday, Katie called to share once again the joy of the Joys. They are expecting their second child (our fourth great grandchild) in late July. The joy of the Joys gives me great joy!”

“Katie and I were talking on the phone back in February (2023).  She told me Elodie was wondering why her Grandad did not pick her up after school.  That was the moment I decided to make this present trip back to England—for the sole purpose of being available to pick Elodie up from school.  Today that is going to happen!

Immediately after that February telephone call with Katie, I called my brother to see if he might want to travel with me again.  He called back the next morning saying “Yes!”  And here we are!  TODAY I will pick Elodie up from school.”

“Elodie,” Katie texted just a week or so ago, “has been saying she is the only leftie in her class and I was telling her about other famous people who are lefties (Barack Obama, Leonardo da Vinci, etc) and she said ‘I don’t know those guys but I do know the most important leftie…Grandad!’”

“Photos of my great grandchildren are not posted on social media.  Last year (2022), however, I posted a photo of Elodie’s “little Red Shoes.”  I do so again (2023), because those little Red Shoes speak volumes.” 

I thank God for the gift of Liam and Katie, for the joys of the Joys, and for the Little Red Shoes that remind all of us to dance—“out into the street, and carry us over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forests, through night and day. “Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the red shoes go on!” (The Red Shoes, by Hans Christian Andersen)

 A Meditation:  Unutterable Love (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I “had a solitary, thoughtful hour,” this morning, wrote Emerson as he journeyed by ship across the Atlantic in 1833.

“The clouds were touched

And in their silent faces might be read

Unutterable love.”

The clouds “shone with light that shines on Europe, Africa, and the Nile, and I opened my spirit’s ear to their most ancient hymn.”

The sea-gull, the waves of the ocean, the rising mists, the wind, “under that arch of light…are works of art better worth your enthusiasm,” than all the masterpieces of Europe.  Emerson experienced “Unutterable love” in what he called “these masterpieces of Eternal power…” He realized in that moment that “You need not go far to seek what ye would not seek at all if it were not within you.”